Mortality from leading causes of death by ethnic group, England and Wales, 2012 to 2019.

Registered leading causes of death by age, sex and country, UK, 2001 to 2018

In 2018 there were over 40 thousand deaths caused by ischaemic heart diseases in the United Kingdom, making it the leading cause of death in that year. Since 2001 there has been a noticeable increase in the number of people dying from dementia or alzheimers, which caused 26.5 thousand deaths in 2018, an increase of almost ten thousand when compared with 2012.

In 1948, over a quarter of deaths recorded in England and Wales were caused by heart disease. The National Health Service was founded in this year in the UK and aimed at improving the health of British citizens.

Provisional deaths registration data for single year of age and average age of death (median and mean) of persons whose death involved coronavirus (COVID-19), England and Wales. Includes deaths due to COVID-19 and breakdowns by sex.

This statistic depicts the number of deaths in Great Britain, which only includes England and Wales, sorted by main causes of death in 2011. In that year, 5,937 people in England and Wales died from infections.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The aim of this project was to analyse the changing geography of mortality decline in England and Wales between 1851 and 1911 via the cause of death by age data for registration districts published in the Registrar General's Decennial Supplements.
Main Topics:

1851-1860 and 1861-1870
Mean population by registration district and sex, total deaths by registration district and sex, causes of death by registration district, sex and age group.
1871-1880
Mean population by registration district and sex, total deaths by registration district and sex, causes of death by registration district and age group, total marriages, total births.
1881-1890 and 1891-1900
Mean population by registration district and sex, total deaths by registration district and sex, causes of death by registration district and sex, causes of death by registration district and age group, total marriages, total births.

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

There were 10,412 deaths registered in England and Wales for the week ending June 20, 2025, compared with 10,902 in the previous week. During this time period, the two weeks with the highest number of weekly deaths were in April 2020, with the week ending April 17, 2020, having 22,351 deaths, and the following week 21,997 deaths, a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. Death and life expectancy As of 2022, the life expectancy for women in the UK was just over 82.5 years, and almost 78.6 years for men. Compared with 1765, when average life expectancy was under 39 years, this is a huge improvement in historical terms. Even in the more recent past, life expectancy was less than 47 years at the start of the 20th Century, and was under 70 as recently as the 1950s. Despite these significant developments in the long-term, improvements in life expectancy stalled between 2009/11 and 2015/17, and have even gone into decline since 2020. Between 2020 and 2022, for example, life expectancy at birth fell by 23 weeks for females, and 37 weeks for males. COVID-19 in the UK The first cases of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom were recorded on January 31, 2020, but it was not until a month later that cases began to rise exponentially. By March 5 of this year there were more than 100 cases, rising to 1,000 days later and passing 10,000 cumulative cases by March 26. At the height of the pandemic in late April and early May, there were around six thousand new cases being recorded daily. As of January 2023, there were more than 24.2 million confirmed cumulative cases of COVID-19 recorded in the United Kingdom, resulting in 202,156 deaths.

Annual age-standardised and age-specific mortality rates by leading causes of death for England and Wales, 2001 to 2018 (Experimental Statistics)

The dataset was originally created to allow the construction of age-specific mortality series and cohort mortality series for particular diseases, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present (in conjunction with the comparable mortality database created by the Office of National Statistics which covers 1901 – present). The dataset is fairly comprehensive and therefore allows both fine analysis of trends in single causes and also the construction of consistent aggregated categories of causes over time. Additionally, comparison of trends in individual causes can be used to infer transfers of deaths between categories over time, that may cause artifactual changes in mortality rates of particular causes. The data are presented by sex, allowing calculation of sex ratios. The age-specific and annual nature of the dataset allows the analysis of cause-specific mortality by birth cohort (assuming low migration at the national level). The database can be used in conjunction with the ONS database “Historic Mortality and Population Data, 1901-1992”, already in the UK Data Archive collection as SN 2902, to create continuous cause-of-death series for the period 1848-1992 (or later, if using more recent versions of the ONS database).

United Kingdom UK: Cause of Death: by Communicable Diseases & Maternal, Prenatal & Nutrition Conditions: % of Total data was reported at 7.700 % in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 8.000 % for 2015. United Kingdom UK: Cause of Death: by Communicable Diseases & Maternal, Prenatal & Nutrition Conditions: % of Total data is updated yearly, averaging 7.850 % from Dec 2000 (Median) to 2016, with 4 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 11.800 % in 2000 and a record low of 7.300 % in 2010. United Kingdom UK: Cause of Death: by Communicable Diseases & Maternal, Prenatal & Nutrition Conditions: % of Total data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.World Bank.WDI: Health Statistics. Cause of death refers to the share of all deaths for all ages by underlying causes. Communicable diseases and maternal, prenatal and nutrition conditions include infectious and parasitic diseases, respiratory infections, and nutritional deficiencies such as underweight and stunting.; ; Derived based on the data from WHO's Global Health Estimates.; Weighted average;

Presents mortality statistics on deaths registered in England and Wales by age-group, sex and underlying cause of death and by other selected information collected at the time of registration. Source agency: Office for National Statistics Designation: National Statistics Language: English Alternative title: Mortality Statistics: Deaths registered in England and Wales (Series DR)

In 2023, the age-specific death rate for men aged 90 or over in England and Wales was 248.1 per one thousand population, and 215.1 for women. Except for infants that were under the age of one, younger age groups had the lowest death rate, with the death rate getting progressively higher in older age groups.

Legacy unique identifier: P00369

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, by age, sex, region and Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), in the latest weeks for which data are available.