Fertility rates continue to fall, but number of births rise
The fertility rate in England and Wales fell to its lowest level on record in 2024. It is the third consecutive year that record has been broken.
Other than a slight jump during the pandemic, birth rates have been falling consistently since 2010. On average, women now have 1.41 babies, compared with 1.42 in 2023 and 1.94 in 2010.
Rates in Scotland are even lower still, according to data released on Tuesday by National Records Scotland. Women there have an average of just 1.25 babies, falling from 1.77 in 2008.
To sustain the size of the global population, demographic experts say women need to have an average of 2.1 babies. This is what they call the “replacement rate”.
A similar rate is required to maintain the population of England and Wales, but it has been below that for more than 50 years. Despite that, the population has increased, largely as a result of immigration.
What’s happening in Britain reflects part of a global trend in declining fertility rates. In South Korea, the country with the lowest fertility rate in the world, women now have fewer than one baby on average – just 0.75.
Fertility remains high in many African countries, however. Somalia has the highest fertility rate in the world, with women there having more than six babies on average.
Despite the declining fertility rate, more babies were born in England and Wales in 2024 compared with 2023, although the 2023 figure was the lowest it had been since 1977.
This is because the population of England and Wales grew by more than 700,000 between 2023 and 2024, mainly due to immigration. So a lower fertility rate is offset by there being more women in the country.
Although fertility rates are falling across England and Wales as a whole, they have risen slightly in London and the West Midlands.
Birmingham was the local authority with the largest increase, rising from 1.61 babies per woman in 2023 to 1.75 in 2024. The largest fall was in Maldon, in Essex, where the number fell from 1.59 to 1.37 per woman.
Since 2014, there has been a fall in fertility in every one of the 303 local authorities for which we have continuous data.
Luton, the local authority with the highest overall fertility rate, where women have an average of exactly two babies, recorded the smallest fall – dropping just 6% in the last 10 years.
In places like Torbay, in Devon, Denbighshire, in north Wales, and the City of Bristol, fertility has fallen by more than a third in the past decade.
Data released last month reveals more information about the demographic make-up of mothers in the UK.
There has been a steady and sustained fall in the number of babies born to British-born mothers, but in 2024 that was offset by an increase in births among those born abroad.
The rise is particularly pronounced among mothers who were born in southern Asia.
In 2024, there were 20,000 more babies born in England and Wales to mothers from that region than there were in 2021 – a rise of almost 50% in just three years.
Births to African mothers have also risen sharply over that period, although there has been an equally rapid fall in babies born to mothers from EU countries, coinciding with Brexit coming into effect.
In 2024, just over a third of babies born in England and Wales had mothers who were born outside the UK, but in some areas foreign-born mothers made up a much higher proportion.
In Luton, for example, which we mentioned earlier, has the highest fertility rate in England and Wales, seven in 10 babies were born to foreign-born mothers in 2024.
As of the 2021 census, the total foreign-born population of Luton was 38%, but many of the foreign-born population will be younger, in age groups more likely to have children.
Birth rates by age
Fertility rates for both men and women are now falling among every age group, and the birth rate among under-30s is the lowest it has ever been.
The number of births to women in their 30s had been rising early this century, but has been steadily falling over the last decade.
In 2024, the average number of babies born to mothers aged between 30 and 34 was the lowest it’s been in more than 20 years.
The average age that mothers have their first child is now 29 years and five months in England and Wales, although there are significant variations in different parts of the country.
In the North East, mothers have their first child shortly after their 28th birthday, on average. In London, it’s three years later – just after turning 31.
The financial burden of low fertility
A combination of women having fewer babies and people living longer means that there is a higher economic burden on each person of working age to support those in retirement.
Demographics expert Dr Paul Morland told Sky News: “In terms of economic society politics, the fundamental problem is that you get more people who are of retirement age [compared with] the number of people working.
“The workers are the ones who are doing the work, paying the taxes, and people over a certain age consume a lot in healthcare – an 80-something consumes five or six times as much as a 20-something.
“The triple lock in the UK means very often that pensioners, even at the very bottom, are better looked after than poor workers. This puts more and more pressure on the state and more and more pressure on labour markets.”
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
How often do migrants successfully fight their removal from Britain on the basis of their human rights?
The clamour from the right for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights has been growing – even some high-profile Labour figures say it needs reform.
So, I’ve come to an immigration appeal court – unannounced – to find out how it is used by migrants and their lawyers here.
Decisions delayed, outcomes unpublished
I get to the fourth floor of a large court building in Birmingham.
The first case I’m ushered into to see is a 38-year-old Nigerian man. He came on a student visa – but that ran out.
Just before he did, he put in a claim to stay on the basis of his relationship with a woman, who is originally from Barbados but has lived and worked in Britain since 2015.
The judge, who will decide their fate, dials in via video link. He hears the man’s partner has a 17-year-old daughter.
She lives with her biological father, but the couple insist she is so close to the Nigerian man she calls him “Dad”. This is an appeal being made under Article 8 of the ECHR – the right to a family life.
The following day, it’s a different judge – this time he’s here in person.
The man in front of him is appealing against deportation to Kenya. He came to the UK as a baby with his mother and siblings.
As a teenager, he was jailed for almost 10 years for stabbing a man, causing serious injuries.
It emerges that his case is also based on Article 8 of the ECHR. Since leaving prison, he’s fathered a child who has just turned two.
There are arguments made too under Article 3 of the ECHR – which protects against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment – due to the man being diagnosed with “generalised anxiety” and depression.
It will be a few weeks before decisions are made on these cases – and the results won’t be published by the court.
I leave, thinking how opaque the process feels.
It’s also easy to see why some politicians are pointing to the ECHR – a treaty signed after the Second World War to protect the rights of everyone in the Council of Europe – as a barrier to removing more migrants.
Between April 2008 and June 2021, 21,521 foreign nationals were due to be deported because of crimes they’d committed
Is the ECHR really a barrier to deportation?
“I think there’s a strong kind of political dynamic there which has led to, in some ways, you might say, a kind of scapegoating of the European Convention,” says Alice Donald, Professor of Human Rights law at Middlesex University, London.
She’s not convinced that withdrawal from ECHR would make a big difference to the number of people the UK is able to remove or deport.
“The honest answer is we don’t know, we don’t have enough data to say that,” she says.
“The data that we do have, for example, in relation to the number of human rights appeals against deportation by foreign national offenders, which has been very much in the news this year, suggests that it would really make only a marginal difference.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘What did we do wrong?’ – Asylum seekers on protests
Read more from Sky News:
What is a digital ID card, and will it be mandatory?
Farage on course to be next PM, mega poll projects
Those figures, published by the Home Office, reveal that between April 2008 and June 2021, 21,521 foreign nationals due to be deported because of crimes they’d committed appealed, and 2,392 were successful on human rights grounds only. That’s around 181 on average per year.
We don’t have figures for how many other types of immigrants are allowed to stay on the basis of human rights. Small boat migrants who claim asylum would usually rely on another convention.
“In terms of asylum claims, it is governed by the 1951 Refugee Convention as a different treaty,” Prof Donald explains.
“There is, of course, overlapping protection with the prohibition of torture in the European Convention… so if the Refugee Convention were still in place, then of course people seeking asylum would rely on that.”
She also believes there have been “a number of erroneous stories or exaggerated stories”.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Reform would deport legal migrants
Debunking the chicken nugget myth
In February 2025, it was widely reported that an Albanian criminal’s deportation was halted over his son’s dislike of foreign chicken nuggets.
“What actually happened in that case is that it went to the upper tribunal (second-tier immigration appeal court) which ordered that he could be deported. And also specifically said that the evidence to do with chicken nuggets was nowhere near the level required,” Prof Donald says.
What leaving the ECHR would mean
Withdrawal from the ECHR would mean the guarantees it provides would be removed for everyone in the UK, not just migrants.
It not only protects the rights to life, liberty, fair trial and freedom of expression among others, but also prohibits torture, slavery and discrimination.
Pulling out of the treaty could also breach the Belfast Good Friday Agreement – though some say such an outcome is avoidable.
However, in a country where immigration is the top issue of concern for voters, there are some who now think that is a price worth paying.
The King and Queen will meet the new Pope during a state visit to Vatican City next month.
The couple will join Leo XIV, who was elected pope earlier this year after the death of Pope Francis, in late October to celebrate the 2025 jubilee year, Buckingham Palace said.
The Catholic Church typically marks a papal jubilee every 25 years.
Charles and Camilla‘s visit is expected to celebrate the ecumenical work by the Church of England and the Catholic Church, reflecting the Jubilee year’s theme of walking together as “Pilgrims of Hope”.
The King is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, a role which dates back to Henry VIII, who named himself Supreme Head of the Church of England after he was excommunicated by Pope Paul III and broke from the Catholic Church in the 16th century to marry Anne Boleyn.
The King and Queen had a meeting with Pope Francis just 12 days before he died.
The King and Queen meeting Pope Francis before his death. Pic: PA
Their historic state visit to the Vatican in early April was cancelled due to the then-pontiff’s poor health, but they managed to visit him privately during their trip to Italy.
The meeting with Francis, in what would be the final weeks of his life, was arranged at the last minute and took place on their 20th wedding anniversary on 9 April, with the pontiff wanting to personally wish them a happy anniversary.
Read more from Sky News:
Elon Musk and Prince Andrew named in latest Epstein files release
Watch moment diplomats walk out as Israeli PM speaks at UN
In an official message released following the news of Francis’s death on 21 April, the King said he and the Queen were “most deeply saddened”.
In May, Charles sent a private message to Pope Leo XIV congratulating him on his election, Buckingham Palace said.
Call handlers at the mental health helpline Samaritans are warning of a mass exodus of volunteers after the charity announced plans to close branches.
The ‘volunteer listeners’ say a shortage of people taking calls will lead to longer wait times to have them answered.
In July, Samaritans chief executive Julie Bentley said it was no longer sustainable to have so many branches.
In a video message to staff, seen by Sky News, she said: “Many of the branches we have today came into existence at a time when Samaritans was set up as a local service, providing separate local numbers. But that hasn’t been the case for some time.
“Our service today doesn’t need the number of buildings we currently have.”
Colm Martin, a volunteer listener for five years, said the announcement came “out of the blue”.
Colm Martin was left surprised by the announcement of closures
“We cannot make sense of it. This is supposed to be about improving a service and we can’t understand how closing half of all of the branches will improve the service or encourage more volunteers to come forward.”
Mr Martin says he thinks Samaritans will lose volunteers.
“Not because they want to leave, but because they’re forced out, because there isn’t a branch local to them that they can go to,” he said.
Last year, three million people called the Samaritans in need of support. Its website reads “every life lost to suicide is a tragedy”.
Read more from Sky News:
King and Queen set to meet Pope Leo
Hackers ‘behind nursery cyber attack’ reveal details of threat
Musk and Prince Andrew named in latest Epstein files release
About 23,000 trained volunteers work with the charity to listen and provide fast support to those experiencing suicidal thoughts as well as other mental health issues.
Ms Bentley told Sky News: “The improvements we’re proposing would mean callers getting through to Samaritans quicker while making it easier for anyone to join our amazing group of volunteers, regardless of their circumstances or busy lifestyles.
“Samaritans will continue to be there for those struggling to cope across the UK and Republic of Ireland, day and night, 365 days a year.”
Angela praised a Samaritans volunteer who helped her at a time when her father was dying
Surbiton-based Angela remembers calling Samaritans for help 40 years ago when her father was dying of cancer.
“Whenever I reached out to any family member, they’d say ‘oh come on, you’re strong, you know what you’re doing. You’re a nurse’, she said.
“One night, I just reached an emotional limit. It was about two o’clock in the morning, and I thought ‘I’m going to burst here’.”
Angela says she cannot recall how long the call lasted but says it was answered quickly.
“He hardly spoke, he just let me empty all my thoughts and he listened,” she said. “That was so powerful to have someone just listening and not interrupting, not dismissing my feelings.”
The charity is set to vote on the proposed changes, which would take place over the next seven to 10 years, this weekend, although in Ireland the consultation process is not due to start until 2027.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK.
Alternatively, you can call Mind’s support line on 0300 102 1234, or NHS on 111.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment12 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024