Number of deaths in the United Kingdom (UK) 2000-2018

There were just over 616 thousand deaths in the United Kingdom in 2018, compared with 607 thousand in 2017. Between 2003 and 2011, the annual number of deaths in the UK fell from 612 thousand to just over 552 thousand. Since 2011 however, the annual number of annual deaths in the United Kingdom has steadily grown, with the number recorded in 2018 a high for the provided time-period.

 Impact of the Coronavirus

With the Coronavirus not hitting the UK until early 2020, these annual figures do not yet reflect the loss of life that has occurred since the pandemic. The weekly death figures for England and Wales provide us with the more recent data and reflect the severity of the situation in late April when there were almost 12 thousand more deaths than the five-year-average for the corresponding week. Although hospitals were the most common location of these deaths, a significant number of these deaths also took place in care homes, approximately 7.9 thousand in the week ending April 24, 2020.

Long-term life expectancy trends

  As of 2018 the life expectancy for men in the United Kingdom was 79, and almost 83 for women, compared with life expectancies of 75 for men and 80 for women in 2002. Between 2011 and 2017, improvements in life expectancy in the UK started to decline, with average life expectancies stagnating and even going in reverse for women between 2015 and 2017, before recovering slightly in the period between 2016 and 2018.