Births in England and Wales: 2025

These are the first annual publications on births and deaths for the data year 2025. For the first time, we have produced provisional total fertility rates and mortality rates at country level using projected populations for 2025. The final rates will be released later in the year as usual. For our deaths counterpart, please see our Death registration summary statistics, England and Wales: 2025 bulletin.

• There were 585,396 live births in England and Wales in 2025, a 1.6% decrease from 594,677 in 2024.

• For the first time, we have produced provisional birth rates at country level using the 2025 projected populations; these estimate a decrease in Total Fertility Rate (TFR) from 1.41 children per woman in 2024 to 1.39 for England and Wales in 2025, the final rates will be released later in 2026.

• Provisional Standardised Mean Age (SMA) indicates a slight increase to 31.1 years of age for mothers and 34.0 years of age for fathers in 2025 (from 31.0 and 33.9 in 2024, respectively); both groups have seen overall increases since 1975, when SMA was 26.4 years of age for mothers, and 29.5 years of age for fathers.

• The number of live births where either one or both parents were born outside of the UK has increased by 0.7 percentage points, from 39.5% in 2024 to 40.2% in 2025.

• While 26 December has remained the least frequent birth date since 2013, the most frequent birth date is much more variable, with 28 May ranking most frequent for the first time since 1999.

Measuring the data

The birth registrations dataset represents live births and stillbirths occurring in the calendar year, plus a small number of late registrations from the previous year.

Birth statistics represent births that occur and are then registered in England and Wales. Figures are derived from information recorded when live births and stillbirths are registered as part of civil registration, which is a legal requirement. Figures include mothers and fathers whose usual residence is outside England and Wales. These data represent the most complete data source available.

The registration of births is a service carried out by the Local Registration Service in partnership with the General Register Office (GRO), in England and Wales. Birth registration is linked to the NHS birth notification within the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is to obtain the age of the mother where it was missing on the birth registration. It also enables the analysis of further characteristics such as birthweight, ethnicity of the baby, and gestation of live births.

Following previous procedures on birth statistics, when referencing England and Wales in this bulletin, the data in the corresponding data tables is "England, Wales and Elsewhere". In this context, "Elsewhere" refers to a birth to a mother whose usual residence is outside England and Wales.

Population estimates impact on rates and timeliness

Fertility rates for 2025 have been calculated at country level only, using population projections for 2025. Final rates and lower geography rates will be released later in the year. For the foreseeable future, counts of live births, stillbirths and maternities, stillbirth rates, and country-level provisional rates will be published in the first instance. Final fertility rates, including Total Fertility Rate and Age-Specific Fertility Rates, will be published as soon as mid-year population estimates are made available. The updated workbooks will be published in the same Births in England and Wales data series as this publication.

Public consultation and our data

The ONS, together with the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, and UK Health Security Agency conducted a public consultation into our health statistics, which closed in March 2024. 

In response, our births data are now published in three data series:

• Births in England and Wales: birth registration
• Births in England and Wales: linked births
• Births in England and Wales: Births by parents' country of birth

A lookup table can be found in the Births in England and Wales: birth registration and linked births data downloads, explaining where statistics from previous editions can be found in the new table format.

The ONS, Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England, Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, and UK Health Security Agency has published a full response to the consultation, summarising feedback on all proposals. Further improvements will be made in future releases.

More quality and methodology information

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Births Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).

Our User guide to birth statistics methodology provides further information on data quality, legislation and procedures relating to births, and includes a glossary of terms.

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in April 2012. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled "Accredited official statistics".

For more on accredited official statistics, read the Office for Statistics Regulation guidance.