Statistics Wales Demography newsletter: December 2024

On 28 January 2025, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) plans to publish National population projections (NPPs) for Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This is a full NPP release using the latest available population data including Census 2021 data and new assumptions for fertility, mortality, and migration, providing a range of variant projections. The base population will be mid-2022.

These projections were originally scheduled for release in November but have been postponed to 28 January 2025. This will allow additional time to use the latest data sources which inform assumptions about the components of future population change in the projections. The postponement also allows sufficient time to complete further quality assurance of the projections which use these additional data.

Until the release, it is recommend to continue using the 2021-based interim NPPs (ONS). 

On 11 December, we published the latest household estimates for Wales. This will include estimates for mid-2021 to mid-2023, as well as a revised back series from mid-2012 to mid-2020 following the 2021 Census.

Our publication will include analysis on household estimates by household type, population, age and sex. StatsWales tables will be updated with the full datasets.

We plan to publish subnational population projections and subnational household projections for local authorities and national parks in summer 2025. This will follow the publication of 2022-based national population projections by the ONS in January 2025. 

To help us plan for the next set of subnational projections, we are asking users about their views on our projections, and what they would like to see in the next publication. We want to hear from as many of you as possible so if you would like to let us know your thoughts, please contacts us on stats.popcensus@gov.wales for our user questionnaire. 

On 8 October, the ONS published population estimates for mid-2023 for the UK. This follows on from the publication of mid-2023 estimates for Wales and England (published 15 July) (ONS), incorporating estimates for Northern Ireland produced by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency and estimates for Scotland produced by National Records of Scotland.

On 1 October 2024, the ONS published estimates of the very old, including centenarians, for Wales and England from 2002 to 2023. This analysis provides annual mid-year population estimates for people aged 90 years or older by sex and single year of age to 105 years and older. Datasets were produced for Wales and England separately as well as combined.

On 23 October, the ONS published national life tables for 2021 to 2023, for Wales and England. These show trends in life expectancy, by age and sex, for the nations (combined and separately).

On 25 November, the ONS published rebased small area population estimates for mid-2012 to mid-2020 for Wales and England. This includes super output areas, health geographies, electoral wards and parliamentary constituencies. 

Small area StatsWales tables will be updated in due course.

On 28 November, the ONS published provisional long-term international migration figures for the UK. This covers the period year ending June 2012 to year ending June 2024, with some revisions being made to previous years’ data.

Figures will only be available at a UK level – please refer to the components of change tables on StatsWales for the latest migration estimates for Wales.

On 22 November, the ONS published case studies of the admin-based population estimates in England and Wales. These case studies will help explain differences between the admin-based population estimates and the official mid-year population estimates for these areas. Cardiff has been chosen as one of the case studies.

In addition to this, ONS published their action plan in response to Office for Statistics Regulation’s (OSR) assessment of ONS’ admin-based population estimates. This outlines their work plan to address the recommendations of the OSR about the ONS’ admin-based estimates, which they plan to make the official mid-year population estimates from summer 2025.

On 28 October, the ONS published their latest update on population and migration statistics. This outlines their work on improvements to how they estimate population and migration, providing an update on the ONS’ plans and progress.

For information on Welsh language statistics, please see the Statistics Wales quarterly update.

Telephone: 0300 025 0373

Email: stats.popcensus@gov.wales

Media: 0300 025 8099