Annual data on deaths registered by age, sex and selected underlying cause of death. Tables also provide both mortality rates and numbers of deaths over time.

There were 667,479 deaths in the United Kingdom in 2021, compared with 689,629 in 2020. Between 2003 and 2011, the annual number of deaths in the UK fell from 612,085 to just over 552,232. Since 2011 however, the annual number of annual deaths in the United Kingdom has steadily grown, with the number recorded in 2020, the highest since 1918 when there were 715,246 deaths. Both of these spikes in the number of deaths can be attributed to infectious disease pandemics. The great influenza pandemic of 1918, which was at its height towards the end of World War One, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a large number of deaths in 2020.  Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic The weekly death figures for England and Wales highlight the tragic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic. In two weeks in April of 2020, there were 22,351 and 21,997 deaths respectively, almost 12,000 excess deaths in each of those weeks. Although hospitals were the most common location of these deaths, a significant number of these deaths also took place in care homes, with 7,911 deaths taking place in care homes for the week ending April 24, 2020, far higher than usual. By the summer of 2020, the number of deaths in England and Wales reached more usual levels, before a second wave of excess deaths hit the country in early 2021. Although subsequent waves of COVID-19 cases resulted in far fewer deaths, the number of excess deaths remained elevated throughout 2022. Long-term life expectancy trends As of 2022 the life expectancy for men in the United Kingdom was 78.57, and almost 82.57 for women, compared with life expectancies of 75 for men and 80 for women in 2002. In historical terms, this is a major improvement in relation to the mid 18th century, when the overall life expectancy was just under 39 years. Between 2011 and 2017, improvements in life expectancy in the UK did start to decline, and have gone into reverse since 2018/20. Between 2020 and 2022 for example, life expectancy for men in the UK has fallen by over 37 weeks, and by almost 23 weeks for women, when compared with the previous year.

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.

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), by local authority, health board and place of death in the latest weeks for which data are available. The occurrence tabs in the 2021 edition of this dataset were updated for the last time on 25 October 2022.

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.

For the week ending August 1, 2025, weekly deaths in England and Wales were 902 below the number expected, compared with 983 below what was expected in the previous week. In late 2022 and through early 2023, excess deaths were elevated for a number of weeks, with the excess deaths figure for the week ending January 13, 2023, the highest since February 2021. In the middle of April 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were almost 12,000 excess deaths a week recorded in England and Wales. It was not until two months later, in the week ending June 19, 2020, that the number of deaths began to be lower than the five-year average for the corresponding week. Most deaths since 1918 in 2020 In 2020, there were 689,629 deaths in the United Kingdom, making that year the deadliest since 1918, at the height of the Spanish influenza pandemic. As seen in the excess death figures, April 2020 was by far the worst month in terms of deaths during the pandemic. The weekly number of deaths for weeks 16 and 17 of that year were 22,351, and 21,997 respectively. Although the number of deaths fell to more usual levels for the rest of that year, a winter wave of the disease led to a high number of deaths in January 2021, with 18,676 deaths recorded in the fourth week of that year. For the whole of 2021, there were 667,479 deaths in the UK, 22,150 fewer than in 2020. Life expectancy in the UK goes into reverse In 2022, life expectancy at birth for women in the UK was 82.6 years, while for men it was 78.6 years. This was the lowest life expectancy in the country for ten years, and came after life expectancy improvements stalled throughout the 2010s, and then declined from 2020 onwards. There is also quite a significant regional difference in life expectancy in the UK. In the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, for example, the life expectancy for men was 81.5 years, and 86.5 years for women. By contrast, in Blackpool, in North West England, male life expectancy was just 73.1 years, while for women, life expectancy was lowest in Glasgow, at 78 years.

The number of deaths registered in England and Wales due to and involving coronavirus (COVID-19). Breakdowns include age, sex, region, local authority, Middle-layer Super Output Area (MSOA), indices of deprivation and place of death. Includes age-specific and age-standardised mortality rates.

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.

This publication of the SHMI relates to discharges in the reporting period December 2021 - November 2022. 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

Deaths registered in England and Wales by week, from 28 December 2019 to 2 July 2021. Breakdowns include country, sex, age group, region, place of death, and leading cause. Includes analysis of excess deaths and relative cumulative age-standardised mortality rates.

The number of deaths of homeless people in England and Wales, by sex, five-year age group and underlying cause of death, 2013 to 2021 registrations. Experimental Statistics.

On March 4, 2020, the first death as a result of coronavirus (COVID-19) was recorded in the United Kingdom (UK). The number of deaths in the UK has increased significantly since then. As of January 13, 2023, the number of confirmed deaths due to coronavirus in the UK amounted to 202,157. On January 21, 2021, 1,370 deaths were recorded, which was the highest total in single day in the UK since the outbreak began.

Number of deaths among highest in Europe
The UK has had the highest number of deaths from coronavirus in western Europe. In terms of rate of coronavirus deaths, the UK has recorded 297.8 deaths per 100,000 population.

Cases in the UK The number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK was 24,243,393 as of January 13, 2023. The South East has the highest number of first-episode confirmed cases of the virus in the UK with 3,123,050 cases, while London and the North West have 2,912,859 and 2,580,090 confirmed cases respectively. As of January 16, the UK has had 50 new cases per 100,000 in the last seven days.

For further information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, please visit our dedicated Facts and Figures page.

Age-standardised mortality rates for deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19), non-COVID-19 deaths and all deaths by vaccination status, broken down by age group.

There were 9.7 homicides for every million people in England and Wales in 2023/24, unchanged from the previous year, but a decline when compared to 2021/22, when the rate was 11.6. In 2022/23, the homicide rate among UK jurisdictions was highest in Scotland, at 10.4 homicides per million people, and lowest in Northern Ireland, which had a homicide rate of 6.8. Throughout this provided time period, the homicide rate for Scotland has declined substantially. From 2003/04 to 2013/14, Scotland had the highest homicide rate among UK jurisdictions, with a peak of 27 homicides per million people recorded in 2004/05. Uptick in violent crimes since the mid-2010s In 2002/03, there were 1,047 homicides in England and Wales, but by 2013/14 this had fallen to just 533, with similar declines also evident in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Unlike the in the latter two jurisdictions, however, there was a noticeable uptick in homicides in England and Wales from 2016/17 onwards, with 720 recorded in 2019/20. Additionally, there has been a surge in violence against the person offences in England and Wales, rising from around 600,000 in 2012/13, to more than 2.1 million ten years later in 2022/23. It is unclear what exactly is driving this trend, but in an attempt to reverse it, the UK government has started to increase the manpower and funding available to UK police forces. Struggles of the UK justice system Recent boosts to police funding come after almost a decade of austerity was imposed on most public services. Although some government departments were protected from this, the Ministry of Justice saw its budget decline from 9.1 billion pounds in 2009/10,to just 7.35 billion pounds in 2015/16. Although the Justice Budget has also increased recently, there are several signs that the system as a whole is under pressure. There is a significant backlog of cases at Crown Courts in England and Wales, with serious offences taking an average of almost two years to pass through the court system. Meanwhile, prisons are struggling with severe capacity issues, along with upticks in violence and self-harm.