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 689,629 deaths in the United Kingdom, the highest in more than a century. Although there were fewer deaths in 2021, at 667,479, 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 declined since 2017/19. As of 2022, the country with the highest life expectancy in the World was Japan, which was 84.5 years, followed by South Korea, at 83.6 years.

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.

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.

There were 11,607 deaths registered in England and Wales for the week ending February 21, 2025, compared with 12,365 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 in decline since 2020. Between 2020 and 2022, for example, life expectancy at birth fell by 23 weeks for females, and 37 weeks for males.2. 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 data on death registrations by area of usual residence in the UK. Summary tables including age-standardised mortality rates.

United Kingdom UK: Mortality Rate: Adult: Female: per 1000 Female Adults data was reported at 53.693 Ratio in 2014. This records a decrease from the previous number of 53.890 Ratio for 2013. United Kingdom UK: Mortality Rate: Adult: Female: per 1000 Female Adults data is updated yearly, averaging 83.533 Ratio from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2014, with 55 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 111.369 Ratio in 1963 and a record low of 53.693 Ratio in 2014. United Kingdom UK: Mortality Rate: Adult: Female: per 1000 Female Adults 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. Adult mortality rate, female, is the probability of dying between the ages of 15 and 60--that is, the probability of a 15-year-old female dying before reaching age 60, if subject to age-specific mortality rates of the specified year between those ages.; ; (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision. (2) University of California, Berkeley, and Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. The Human Mortality Database.; Weighted average;

UNICEF's country profile for United Kingdom, including under-five mortality rates, child health, education and sanitation data.

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

In 2021, the infant mortality rate in the United Kingdom was four deaths one year per 1,000 live births, one of the lowest infant mortality rate in this period. Infant mortality has fallen considerably since 1900, when there were 150 infant deaths per 1,000 live births.

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

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.

To reduce deaths from stroke.

This publication of the SHMI relates to discharges in the reporting period April 2023 - March 2024. 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. 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).

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.

Annual data on the number of deaths registered in England and Wales by age group, sex, year and underlying cause of death, as defined using the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision.

Chart and table of the U.K. infant mortality rate from 1950 to 2025. United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100.

United Kingdom UK: Mortality Rate: Neonatal: per 1000 Live Births data was reported at 2.600 Ratio in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 2.700 Ratio for 2015. United Kingdom UK: Mortality Rate: Neonatal: per 1000 Live Births data is updated yearly, averaging 4.800 Ratio from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2016, with 57 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 16.100 Ratio in 1960 and a record low of 2.600 Ratio in 2016. United Kingdom UK: Mortality Rate: Neonatal: per 1000 Live Births 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. Neonatal mortality rate is the number of neonates dying before reaching 28 days of age, per 1,000 live births in a given year.; ; Estimates Developed by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNICEF, WHO, World Bank, UN DESA Population Division) at www.childmortality.org.; Weighted Average; Given that data on the incidence and prevalence of diseases are frequently unavailable, mortality rates are often used to identify vulnerable populations. Moreover, they are among the indicators most frequently used to compare socioeconomic development across countries.

United Kingdom UK: Death Rate: Crude: per 1000 People data was reported at 9.100 Ratio in 2016. This records a decrease from the previous number of 9.200 Ratio for 2015. United Kingdom UK: Death Rate: Crude: per 1000 People data is updated yearly, averaging 11.300 Ratio from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2016, with 57 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 12.200 Ratio in 1963 and a record low of 8.700 Ratio in 2011. United Kingdom UK: Death Rate: Crude: per 1000 People 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: Population and Urbanization Statistics. Crude death rate indicates the number of deaths occurring during the year, per 1,000 population estimated at midyear. Subtracting the crude death rate from the crude birth rate provides the rate of natural increase, which is equal to the rate of population change in the absence of migration.; ; (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;

Provisional age-standardised mortality rates for deaths due to COVID-19 by sex, English regions and Welsh health boards.