Life expectancy in the United Kingdom was below 39 years in the year 1765, and over the course of the next two and a half centuries, it is expected to have increased by more than double, to 81.1 by the year 2020. Although life expectancy has generally increased throughout the UK's history, there were several times where the rate deviated from its previous trajectory. These changes were the result of smallpox epidemics in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, new sanitary and medical advancements throughout time (such as compulsory vaccination), and the First world War and Spanish Flu epidemic in the 1910s.

Pivot table for healthy life expectancy by sex and area type, divided by three-year intervals starting from 2011 to 2013.

Historical chart and dataset showing U.K. life expectancy by year from 1950 to 2025.

In 2022 life expectancy for both males and females at birth fell when compared to 2021. Male life expectancy fell from 78.71 years to 78.57 years, and from 82.68 years to 82.57 years for women.

Period life expectancy by age and sex for England. Each national life table is based on population estimates, births and deaths for a period of three consecutive years. Tables are published annually.

United Kingdom UK: Life Expectancy at Birth: Total data was reported at 80.956 Year in 2016. This stayed constant from the previous number of 80.956 Year for 2015. United Kingdom UK: Life Expectancy at Birth: Total data is updated yearly, averaging 75.380 Year from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2016, with 57 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 81.305 Year in 2014 and a record low of 70.827 Year in 1963. United Kingdom UK: Life Expectancy at Birth: Total data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s UK – Table UK.World Bank: Health Statistics. Life expectancy at birth indicates the number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay the same throughout its life.; ; (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision, or derived from male and female life expectancy at birth from sources such as: (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Population and Vital Statistics Reprot (various years), (5) U.S. Census Bureau: International Database, and (6) Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Statistics and Demography Programme.; Weighted average;

In 2022, the life expectancy at birth for women born in the UK was 82.57 years, compared with 78.57 years for men. By age 65 men had a life expectancy of 18.25 years, compared with 20.76 years for women.

It is only in the past two centuries where demographics and the development of human populations has emerged as a subject in its own right, as industrialization and improvements in medicine gave way to exponential growth of the world's population. There are very few known demographic studies conducted before the 1800s, which means that modern scholars have had to use a variety of documents from centuries gone by, along with archeological and anthropological studies, to try and gain a better understanding of the world's demographic development. Genealogical records One such method is the study of genealogical records from the past; luckily, there are many genealogies relating to European families that date back as far as medieval times. Unfortunately, however, all of these studies relate to families in the upper and elite classes; this is not entirely representative of the overall population as these families had a much higher standard of living and were less susceptible to famine or malnutrition than the average person (although elites were more likely to die during times of war). Nonetheless, there is much to be learned from this data. Impact of the Black Death In the centuries between 1200 and 1745, English male aristocrats who made it to their 21st birthday were generally expected to live to an age between 62 and 72 years old. The only century where life expectancy among this group was much lower was in the 1300s, where the Black Death caused life expectancy among adult English noblemen to drop to just 45 years. Experts assume that the pre-plague population of England was somewhere between four and seven million people in the thirteenth century, and just two million in the fourteenth century, meaning that Britain lost at least half of its population due to the plague. Although the plague only peaked in England for approximately eighteen months, between 1348 and 1350, it devastated the entire population, and further outbreaks in the following decades caused life expectancy in the decade to drop further. The bubonic plague did return to England sporadically until the mid-seventeenth century, although life expectancy among English male aristocrats rose again in the centuries following the worst outbreak, and even peaked at more than 71 years in the first half of the sixteenth century.

Period life expectancy by age and sex for 1980 to 2023 for England, Wales (and combined), Scotland, Northern Ireland, Great Britain, and the UK. Each life table is based on population estimates, births and deaths for a single year.

Female life expectancy at birth fell in all four countries of the United Kingdom in 2020-22 when compared with 2019/21. English women had a life expectancy of 82.83, compared with 80.73 in Scotland, 81.82 in Wales and 82.26 in Northern Ireland. In both England and Wales, life expectancy ticked up for the period 2021/23.

United Kingdom UK: Life Expectancy at Birth: Male data was reported at 79.200 Year in 2016. This stayed constant from the previous number of 79.200 Year for 2015. United Kingdom UK: Life Expectancy at Birth: Male data is updated yearly, averaging 72.600 Year from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2016, with 57 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 79.500 Year in 2014 and a record low of 67.900 Year in 1963. United Kingdom UK: Life Expectancy at Birth: Male 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. Life expectancy at birth indicates the number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay the same throughout its life.; ; (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision. (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Population and Vital Statistics Reprot (various years), (5) U.S. Census Bureau: International Database, and (6) Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Statistics and Demography Programme.; Weighted average;

Between 2021 and 2023, London was the region of the United Kingdom that had the highest average life expectancy for females, at 84.13 years, while South East England had the highest life expectancy for males at 80.32 years. By comparison, Scotland had the lowest life expectancy, at 76.79 for males and 80.77 for females.

Healthy life expectancy (HLE) is an estimate of expected years of life spent in self-reported good health. The figure used is for males aged under 1 year. Figures are based on the number of deaths registered and mid-year population estimates, aggregated over three consecutive years.

It is used as a high-level outcome to contrast and monitor the health status of different populations at specific points in time, giving context to the impacts of policy changes and interventions at both national and local levels.

Healthy life expectancy has value across state, private, and voluntary sectors, in the assessment of healthy ageing, fitness for work, health improvement monitoring, extensions to the state pension age, pension provision, and health and social care need. This indicator is an extremely important summary measure of mortality and morbidity. It complements the supporting indicators such as mortality by cause by showing the overall trends and setting the context in which local authorities can assess the other indicators and identify the drivers of healthy life expectancy.

The health prevalence data used in calculating HLE estimates for the various geographies in England were derived from the Annual Population Survey (APS).

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Life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy – at birth and age 65 by sex for local areas in the UK, 2016 to 2018.

This is a point feature service which shows the following "Life expectancy at birth. Population weighting applying MSOA Life expectancy to GP registered patients." This description was taken from Public Health England's metadata on the GP profiles. This data was downloaded Febuary 2015. Esri UK accepts no responbibility over the quality of the data or ownership. All content is available under the Open Government Licence, except where otherwise stated

Healthy life expectancy (HLE) is an estimate of expected years of life spent in self-reported good health. The figure used is for females aged under 1 year. Figures are based on the number of deaths registered and mid-year population estimates, aggregated over three consecutive years.

It is used as a high-level outcome to contrast and monitor the health status of different populations at specific points in time, giving context to the impacts of policy changes and interventions at both national and local levels.

Healthy life expectancy has value across state, private, and voluntary sectors, in the assessment of healthy ageing, fitness for work, health improvement monitoring, extensions to the state pension age, pension provision, and health and social care need. This indicator is an extremely important summary measure of mortality and morbidity. It complements the supporting indicators such as mortality by cause by showing the overall trends and setting the context in which local authorities can assess the other indicators and identify the drivers of healthy life expectancy.

The health prevalence data used in calculating HLE estimates for the various geographies in England were derived from the Annual Population Survey (APS).

Data is Powered by LG Inform Plus and automatically checked for new data on the 3rd of each month.