Who are we? · UK, nations, regions and local areas
Who are we? The people and households behind UK statistics
About 69.5 million people lived in the UK in mid-2025. Explore where they live, their ages, ethnicity and country of birth, the homes and households they live in, and their income and work — using only official tables, with every figure dated and sourced.
Evidence last reviewed 31 October 2026
Explore
How many of us, and how old?
69.5 million
people in the UK, mid-2025 (30 June 2025). Official estimate (ONS, NRS, NISRA).
Ethnicity and country of birth
16.0%
of UK residents were born outside the UK. Census, March 2021 (Scotland modelled).
Households and families
28.0 million
households in the UK. Census, March 2021 (Scotland modelled).
Homes: who owns, who rents, and children
19.5%
of UK households rented privately. Census, March 2021 (Scotland modelled).
Income, low income and food
£701
a week: middle household income, before housing costs, adjusted for household size (3 years, FYE 2023-FYE 2025, 2024/25 prices). Survey-based.
Who is in this group?
39%
of people in single-parent families were in the lowest-income fifth before housing costs, against 20% of everyone (April 2024 to March 2025). Survey-based. Explore 81 groups and 30-year trends.
Pay and employment
£811
a week: median full-time employee pay, April 2026 (provisional).
How each group's low-income rate has changed since 1994/95 is on its group page. For costs and pay then and now, see Cost of living: who is affected. Household spending is on What households spend.
Built from official tables and checked by automated tests; it has not yet had independent analytical review. About these numbers.
Where we live
- England58.8 million
- Wales3.2 million
- Scotland5.5 million
- Northern Ireland1.9 million
Mid-year estimates include people living in communal establishments such as care homes and student halls. UK total: 69,483,939.
Show the workings and sources
- Population estimates for the UK, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland — MYE1. ONS (with NRS and NISRA). Edition: mid2025. Published 2026-09-30. Retrieved 2026-10-31. Exact file or query. Open Government Licence v3.0.
About these numbers
Two census dates
England, Wales and Northern Ireland held their census on 21 March 2021. Scotland held its census a year later, on 20 March 2022. To compare the four nations, these pages use the official UK tables (ONS, NRS and NISRA), which estimate Scotland for March 2021 from its 2011 and 2022 censuses. Those Scotland figures are modelled, so they are labelled. Scotland's own 2022 count appears only in the “each nation's own census” views.
People, households and families
A household is people who live at the same address and share cooking facilities or a living room. A family is a couple, or a lone parent, with any children. Some figures count people, some count households; each chart says which, and the two are never mixed.
Survey figures
Income, housing costs, food security and employment come from sample surveys. They have a margin of error, and figures for nations and regions often pool three years. Small differences may be noise.
Places
North East, North West, and Yorkshire and The Humber. A UK Facts grouping of English ITL1 regions (owner decision D5, 31 October 2026), not an official geography. Local authority district, always shown with its boundary vintage: 2021 census geography in England and Wales, council areas 2019 in Scotland, Local Government Districts 2014 in Northern Ireland.
What these pages never do
They never add separate national tables into a UK total, never combine two tables to estimate a figure neither publishes, never treat a figure the publisher withheld as zero, and never infer ethnicity from country of birth.
Data last refreshed: 2026-10-31. Census tables: Census-based statistics, UK 2021: tenure.