The first data from the 2021 census provides a vivid snapshot of the population of England and Wales but also of the dynamic changes affecting different towns and cities. Here are some highlights:
If youth is the future then the best places to see it include Barking and Dagenham, Slough, Luton and Birmingham, which have the highest proportions of 0-19 year olds in the population, ranging from 31.5% for Barking to 28.5% for Birmingham, compared with 23.1% across England and Wales combined.
One in three people in North Norfolk is now 65 and over, making it the oldest place in England and Wales in terms of pension-age people in the population.
Between 1981 and 2021, South Staffordshire had the biggest increase in the proportion of over-65s in England or Wales. This age group made up just 10.1% of the population four decades ago. Now it is 25.2%. Between 2011 and 2021, Richmondshire in North Yorkshire had the biggest increase in the proportion of 65 and overs, rising from 17.5% of the population in 2011 to 23.5% in 2021.
The populations of Sunderland, Blackpool and Swansea shrank in the last decade and there were also falls in the central London boroughs of Westminster, Camden and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC). Sunderland shrank by 0.6%, while Westminster and RBKC shrank by 6.8% and 9.5% respectively, although Westminster city council believes this could be because about 100,000 London residents may not have been recorded, as the census was taken during a lockdown period and residents may have been living elsewhere.
The east of England was the region that had the biggest percentage rise in population, up 8.3% from 5.8 million to 6.3 million.
The population of the UK’s biggest city, London, grew by 7.7%, from 8.2 million to 8.8 million – slightly larger than Kuala Lumpur, but smaller than Tehran.
Outside London, the most densely populated places are Luton, Portsmouth and Leicester. More than 5,000 people are squeezed into each square kilometre in these towns and cities.
RBKC has the highest proportion of females of any place in England and Wales at 53.3% and the City of London has the biggest percentage of males at 55.8%. Males outnumber females in only 11 council areas, including Rutland, Richmondshire and Salford. Rushmoor and East Staffordshire offer an exactly even gender split.
There were 1.4m more households in England and Wales than in 2011 but the size of the average household was exactly the same, at 2.4 people.
