Mortality rates (qx) values from the national life tables release, presented in time series format. These statistics are for males and females for England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the UK.

Between 1953 and 2021, the death rate of the United Kingdom fluctuated between a high of 12.2 deaths per 1,000 people in 1962 and a low of 8.7 in 2011. From 2011 onwards, the death rate creeped up slightly and, in 2020, reached 10.3 deaths per 1,000 people. In 2021, the most recent year provided here, the death rate was ten, a decline from 2020 but still higher than in almost every year in the twenty-first century. The recent spike in the death rate corresponds to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, with the first cases recorded in early 2020. Most deaths since 1918 in 2020 In 2020, there were around 689,600 deaths in the United Kingdom, the highest in more than a century. Although there were fewer deaths in 2021, at almost 667,500, this was still far higher than in recent years. When looking at the weekly deaths in England and Wales for this time period, two periods stand out for reporting far more deaths than usual. The first period was between weeks 13 and 22 of 2020, which saw two weeks in late April report more than 20,000 deaths. Excess deaths for the week ending April 17, 2020, were 11,854 and 11,539 for the following week. Another wave of deaths occurred in January 2021, when there were more than 18,000 deaths per week between weeks three and five of that year. Improvements to life expectancy slowing Between 2020 and 2022, life expectancy in the United Kingdom was approximately 82.57 years for women and 78.57 years for men. Compared with life expectancy in 1980/82, this marked an increase of around six years for women and almost eight years for men. Despite these long-term developments, improvements to life expectancy have been slowing in recent years and have even declined since 2017/19. As of 2023, the country with the highest life expectancy in the World was Switzerland at 84.2 years, followed by Japan at 84.1 years, and then by Spain at 84 years.

Annual data on death registrations by area of usual residence in the UK. Summary tables including age-standardised mortality rates.

There were 11,480 deaths registered in England and Wales for the week ending November 14, 2025, compared with 11,297 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.

In August 2025, there were 39,435 deaths in England and Wales, compared with 45,796 in July. In April 2020, there were 88,038 deaths, which was an increase of almost 40,000 from the month before and by far the month with the most deaths in this period. The dramatic increase in deaths in April can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, which first hit the UK in early 2020.

In 2023 life expectancy for both males and females at birth rose when compared to 2022. Male life expectancy increased from 78.58 years to 78.82 years, and from 82.57 years to 82.77 years for females. Throughout most of this period, there is a steady rise in life expectancy for both males and females, with improvements in life expectancy beginning to slow in the 2010s and then starting to decline in the 2020s. Life expectancy since the 18th Century Although there has been a recent dip in life expectancy in the UK, long-term improvements to life expectancy stretch back several centuries. In 1765, life expectancy was below 39 years, and only surpassed 40 years in the 1810s, 50 years by the 1910s, 60 years by the 1930s and 70 by the 1960s. While life expectancy has broadly improved since the 1700s, this trajectory was interrupted at various points due to wars and diseases. In the early 1920s, for example, life expectancy suffered a noticeable setback in the aftermath of the First World War and Spanish Flu Epidemic. Impact of COVID-19 While improvements to UK life expectancy stalled during the 2010s, it wasn't until the 2020s that it began to decline. The impact of COVID-19 was one of the primary factors in this respect, with 2020 seeing the most deaths in the UK since 1918. The first wave of the pandemic in Spring of that year was a particularly deadly time, with weekly death figures far higher than usual. A second wave that winter saw a peak of almost 5,700 excess deaths a week in late January 2021, with excess deaths remaining elevated for several years afterward.

This publication of the SHMI relates to discharges in the reporting period February 2022 - January 2023. The SHMI is the ratio between the actual number of patients who die following hospitalisation at the trust and the number that would be expected to die on the basis of average England figures, given the characteristics of the patients treated there. The SHMI covers patients admitted to hospitals in England who died either while in hospital or within 30 days of being discharged. Deaths related to COVID-19 are excluded from the SHMI. To help users of the data understand the SHMI, trusts have been categorised into bandings indicating whether a trust's SHMI is 'higher than expected', 'as expected' or 'lower than expected'. For any given number of expected deaths, a range of observed deaths is considered to be 'as expected'. If the observed number of deaths falls outside of this range, the trust in question is considered to have a higher or lower SHMI than expected. The expected number of deaths is a statistical construct and is not a count of patients. The difference between the number of observed deaths and the number of expected deaths cannot be interpreted as the number of avoidable deaths or excess deaths for the trust. The SHMI is not a measure of quality of care. A higher than expected number of deaths should not immediately be interpreted as indicating poor performance and instead should be viewed as a 'smoke alarm' which requires further investigation. Similarly, an 'as expected' or 'lower than expected' SHMI should not immediately be interpreted as indicating satisfactory or good performance. Trusts may be located at multiple sites and may be responsible for 1 or more hospitals. A breakdown of the data by site of treatment is also provided, as well as a breakdown of the data by diagnosis group. Further background information and supporting documents, including information on how to interpret the SHMI, are available on the SHMI homepage (see Related Links). Information about the exclusion of COVID-19 from the SHMI can also be found on the same page. A link to the methodological changes statement which details the exclusion is also available in the Related Links section

There were 2,784 infant deaths in the United Kingdom in 2021, compared with 2,620 in the previous year. The number of infant deaths in 2020 was the fewest in the provided time period, especially compared with 1900 when there were 163,470 infant deaths.

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.

Period and cohort mortality rates (qx) for England and Wales using the principal projection by single year of age 0 to 100.

United Kingdom UK: Number of Deaths Ages 10-14 Years data was reported at 323.000 Person in 2019. This records an increase from the previous number of 322.000 Person for 2018. United Kingdom UK: Number of Deaths Ages 10-14 Years data is updated yearly, averaging 489.500 Person from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2019, with 30 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 662.000 Person in 1990 and a record low of 320.000 Person in 2017. United Kingdom UK: Number of Deaths Ages 10-14 Years 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. Number of deaths of adolescents ages 10-14 years; ; Estimates developed by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNICEF, WHO, World Bank, UN DESA Population Division) at www.childmortality.org.; Sum; Aggregate data for LIC, UMC, LMC, HIC are computed based on the groupings for the World Bank fiscal year in which the data was released by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation.

Experimental analysis of ethnic differences in cause-specific mortality rates in England and Wales based on 2011 Census and death registrations.

In 2023, nearly *** men and *** women per 100,000 population died from diseases of the respiratory system in England. The North West of England had the highest mortality from respiratory diseases for men at roughly *** per 100,000, while the North East region had the highest female mortality rate at *** deaths per 100,000 population.

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) has updated the mortality profile.

The profile brings together a selection of mortality indicators, including from other OHID data tools such as the https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/profile/public-health-outcomes-framework/data">Public Health Outcomes Framework, making it easier to assess outcomes across a range of causes of death.

For the January 2022 update, 2 new indicators have been added to the profile:

• mortality rate for deaths involving COVID-19, all ages
• mortality rate for deaths involving COVID-19, under 75s

COVID-19 was the leading cause of death in England in 2020, but the pandemic had a much greater impact on mortality in some areas than others. These indicators have been included alongside other indicators for leading causes of death in the mortality profile to provide a more complete picture of mortality for local areas in 2020.

If you would like to send us feedback on the tool please contact profilefeedback@phe.gov.uk.