Number of deaths in the UK 1887-2020

There were 689,629 deaths in the United Kingdom in 2020, compared with 604,707 in 2019. 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.

 Impact of the Coronavirus

The weekly death figures for England and Wales provide more recent data and reflect that in early 2021, the UK is still suffering from the Coronavirus pandemic, albeit not as severely as 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 2 thousand in the week ending December 25, 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.