By David Milliken<\/p>\n
LONDON, April 28 (Reuters) – The United Kingdom’s population is likely to grow to 71.0 million by mid-2034, below a previous projection of 72.2 million \u200cdue to lower immigration assumptions, the country’s statistics office said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Net immigration looks \u200cset to add 2.2 million people to the UK’s population of 69.3 million between mid-2024 and mid-2034, while there \u200bwould be a drag of 450,000 from deaths exceeding births, the Office for National Statistics said.<\/p>\n
Net migration was likely to remain the only source of expected population growth, the ONS said.<\/p>\n
The lower expected population growth could add to the fiscal headwinds that will face finance minister Rachel Reeves \u200cin her autumn budget.<\/p>\n
However, the agency \u2060said the projections should not be treated as a definitive forecast as they are largely based on an extrapolation of recent trends and do \u2060not attempt to predict future changes in government policy or other factors driving migration, fertility or mortality.<\/p>\n
Tuesday’s projection showed the extent to which Britain’s population is ageing. The number of pensioners is expected \u200bto rise \u200bby 15% to 14.2 million between 2024 and \u200b2034, while the number of children \u200caged under 16 will fall by 13%.<\/p>\n
The ONS also trimmed its assumption for fertility to 1.42 children per woman from 1.45 in its last projections made two years ago.<\/p>\n
There was a more substantial cut to the ONS’ assumption for future rates of net immigration to 230,000 a year from 340,000 in the 2024 report.<\/p>\n
“This reflects the sharp decrease in net migration since it \u200cpeaked in 2023, as well as expert advice,” it \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n
Britain saw immigration surge after the COVID-19 pandemic, reflecting \u200bpent-up demand as well as a \u200bdecision by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government to relax rules particularly \u200cfor low-paid care workers and their families.<\/p>\n
After \u200bnet immigration approached 1 \u200bmillion in the 12 months to June 2023, rules were tightened and it fell to 204,000 in the 12 months to June 2025.<\/p>\n
The population of England is expected to \u200bgrow faster than elsewhere in \u200cthe UK. England’s population is projected to rise by 2.9% by mid-2034, compared \u200bto growth of 1.0% in Wales, 0.6% in Northern Ireland and 0.3% in \u200bScotland.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by David Milliken; editing by William Schomberg)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By David Milliken LONDON, April 28 (Reuters) – The United Kingdom’s population is likely to grow to 71.0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[284,10780,1312,10779,10778,1268,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-24014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-immigration","9":"tag-net-migration","10":"tag-office-for-national-statistics","11":"tag-population","12":"tag-population-growth","13":"tag-the-united-kingdom","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116482278077940434","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}