The UK population is projected to grow by 4.9 million (7.3%) over the 10 years between mid-2022 and mid-2032, according to our latest national population projections.
Projecting future changes in the population is essential for planning in areas like health, education, public finances and pensions.
Small changes in factors like migration and life expectancy can have a big influence on population projections. This interactive tool enables you to adjust different factors and see the effect they have on what the population may look like in the future and make comparisons with our official projections.
The statistics generated by this tool are projections, not predictions. National population projections are not forecasts and do not attempt to predict changes in international migration, births or deaths.
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Tool input ranges and source data
The available inputs for this tool broadly match the ranges of our official projections. For example, net migration can be raised to match assumptions used in our ‘high migration’ variant projection. Our ‘principal projection’ is our main projection of how many people could be living in the UK in the future.
Our accredited official projections are developed using a cohort component projection method and expert advice. You can find out more about the methodology here.
For the custom user selected views in the tool, we have interpolated data based on outputs from the National Population Projections system. However, there are 528 possible selections within the tool, so there cannot be the same level of detailed assumption setting and quality checks as with our official projections. Our published projections are produced with input from experts, unlike the user-selected projections in this tool. While this means there can be more flexibility to change assumptions while using the tool, it is important to remember that they are not official projections in themselves.
To find out more about the official methods used in our projections, see National population projections: 2022-based, background, methodology and assumption setting.