Population estimates by marital status and living arrangements, England and Wales: 2025

• Married or civil partnered remained the most common legal partnership status among people aged 18 years and over in England and Wales; however, the percentage decreased slightly from 52.3% in 2015 to 51.1% in 2025, despite people in civil partnerships and same-sex marriages more than quadrupling over the same period to 0.9% and 0.4%, respectively.

• Never married or civil partnered was the second most common legal partnership status among people aged 18 years and over in England and Wales, increasing from 32.6% in 2015 to 34.9% in 2025; the largest increases were for those aged between 25 to 34 and 45 to 69 years, where increases were between 4 and 7 percentage points.

• People in same-sex marriages accounted for 0.9% (218,204) of all married persons in England and Wales in 2025; this number has grown steadily since the introduction of same-sex marriage in March 2014, with men accounting for 64.5% and women accounting for 35.5% of those in same-sex marriages in 2025.

• In 2025, 62.1% of people aged 18 years and over were living in a couple, making this the most common living arrangement; 49.1% were living with a legal partner, 10.8% were cohabiting without ever forming a legal partnership and 2.2% were cohabiting after divorce or the death of a legal partner.

• Cohabitation among those who have not previously formed a legal partnership increased to 10.8% of people aged 18 years and over in England and Wales in 2025, from 9.8% in 2015; in contrast, the percentages of people living with a legal partner or cohabiting after divorce or the death of a legal partner both decreased slightly.

• Estimates for 2022 to 2024 have been revised following revisions to the mid-year population estimates for these years to incorporate improved international migration data; changes to estimates by marital status and age group for England and Wales combined are generally small (1.0% or less), with the exception of those aged under 20 years, where changes were below 2.3%.

Our population estimates by marital status and living arrangements are produced using mid-year population estimates and Quarter 2 (Apr to June) of the Labour Force Survey (LFS), a large-scale UK household survey. For Quarter 2 2025, the LFS achieved a sample of 33,235 households (including imputed).

The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act 2022 raised the minimum age of marriage and civil partnership in England and Wales from 16 years to 18 years from 27 February 2023. The 2025 data is the first year in which no one under 18 years of age can be married. All percentages presented in this bulletin exclude those aged under 18 years. To enable consistent 10-year comparisons, we produced some additional estimates for persons aged 18 years and over for 2015.

In this bulletin, we have compared percentage distributions in 2025 with 2015. The comparisons included are statistically significant. This means that there is likely to have been a real change and that the difference we are observing is unlikely to be a result of chance. More information about statistical significance is available in our Population estimates by marital status and living arrangements quality and methods guide: How we produce the statistics.

The Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013 enabled same-sex couples to marry in England and Wales from 29 March 2014. Sample sizes are not large enough to produce robust estimates of persons in same-sex marriages by age group.

The Civil Partnerships, Marriages and Deaths (Registrations etc) Act 2019 enabled opposite-sex civil partnerships in England and Wales from 31 December 2019. Estimates for civil partnerships include both opposite-sex and same-sex couples because sample sizes are too small to report separate estimates.

More quality and methodology information on strengths, limitations, appropriate uses, and how the data were created is available in our Population estimates by marital status and living arrangements quality and methods guide.