Last week, the first data from the 2021 Census for England and Wales was released by the Office for National Statistics. These statistics join those published recently for Northern Ireland.
The UK Data Service has made the data tables and accompanying metadata available for download via the UK Data Service Census site.
This first release of data contains estimates of population by age and sex for both regions and local authorities in England and Wales.
Key points
Population growth
On Census day, the population in England and Wales was 59,597,300. This was a growth of 6.3% (over 3.5 million) since the 2011 census and takes the population of the two countries to the highest level recorded in a census.
There was growth in population in all regions of England (as well as across Wales), with the East of England seeing the largest growth – approximately 488,000 more residents than in 2011.
Sex
There were 30,420,100 women (51%) and 29,177,200 men (49%) in England and Wales on census day.
Age
The population of England Wales continues to have an older age profile. 18.6% of the population were aged 65 or over, compared with 16.4% in 2011.
Number of households
Compared to 2011, there were more than 1.4 million extra households in England and Wales on census day, taking the total number to 24,782,800.
Interactives
The ONS has produced two interactives to accompany the data release:
ONS’ future planned releases
Forthcoming releases from the ONS are expected to cover these topics (in expected publication order):
- demography and migration
- ethnic group, national identity, language, and religion
- UK armed forces veterans
- housing
- labour market and travel to work
- sexual orientation and gender identity
- education
- health, disability, and unpaid care
The UK Data Service has made the England and Wales headline census data available on our website. This complements our holdings of UK census data from 1971 to 2011 and we will continue to add 2021/2022 census data once it is released.