Four in 10 births in England and Wales now involve at least one parent born outside the United Kingdom, new figures reveal, while fertility rates fell to a record low in 2025 and the number of live births hit their lowest level in 50 years.
Births where at least one parent was born outside the UK are up 10% since 2010, accounting for 40% of all births, according to a report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) released 27 May.
Children born to couples where both parents were born outside the UK now account for more than a quarter of all births (27%), highlighting the speed of demographic change taking place.
The total fertility rate (TFR) – indicating the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime – for England and Wales has dropped to 1.39, down from 1.41 in 2024 and well below the replacement rate of 2.1 needed to keep the population stable.
In 2025, births in England and Wales fell for the fourth year in a row and are now at their lowest level in nearly 50 years. Birth rates have declined steadily since 2010. There were 585,000 live births in 2025, down 10,000 from the year before and the lowest total since 1977.
White British Births See Significant Decline
Of those, 310,000 babies were born to mothers classified as White British, accounting for just over half (53%) of all births. This marks a significant decline since 2010, when these births made up exactly two-thirds (66%) of all births.
Mothers born outside the UK now account for more than a third of births, the ONS statistics show.
While births to European-born mothers have fallen, which analysts have linked to tighter immigration rules for EU migrants after Brexit, births to mothers from Middle Eastern and Asian backgrounds have risen sharply, from 66,348 in 2010 to 91,265 in 2025, a rise of almost 40%.
The figures also reveal the nationalities most commonly represented among foreign-born mothers. Indian-born mothers topped the list with 27,601 births, followed by Pakistani-born mothers with 22,058 and Nigerian-born mothers with 15,509.
This growth comes despite the fact that fertility rates have fallen among both mothers born abroad and mothers born in the UK, according to the most recent figures made available by the ONS, as highlighted in the graph below.
The TFR for mothers born in the UK and the EU has consistently remained below the replacement rate of 2.1 since the start of the century.
However, mothers born in Africa, Southern Asia, the Middle East, South America and the Caribbean all recorded TFRs above the replacement rate in 2001.
But as of 2021, only Southern Asian (2.29) and Middle Eastern (2.27) mothers are having children at or above the replacement rate of 2.1.
Earlier this year, a report from the Muslim Council of Britain noted that British Muslims are one of the youngest and fastest-growing groups in the country. With a median age of 27, they are 13 years younger than the national average, the 15 May report suggests.
Immigration Drives Demographic Change
This means that population growth is driven by high levels of immigration to Great Britain, an issue that polling consistently shows is voters’ top concerns. As the anti-immigration Reform Party continues to perform well in polls and local elections, the traditional major parties – the Conservatives and Labour – are both under pressure to change their migration policies.
Both parties have proposed measures to reduce migration: the former Conservative government undertook a failed bid to process certain asylum claims in Rwanda, while the current Labour government has indicated its support for “return hubs”. The proposal, which is gaining traction across Europe, would see failed asylum seekers sent to designated safe countries.
Net migration to the UK peaked at almost one million people in 2023 and has since fallen to just over 200,000 people. Gross migration remains high, with over 700,000 legal immigrants in the most recent immigration statistics, but this is masked by significant levels of emigration.
Earlier this year, the ONS warned that from 2027 onward, births would outnumber deaths across the UK, with population growth slowing because of falling levels of net immigration.
Meanwhile the statistical agency for Northern Ireland revealed that pensioners are expected to outnumber children as early as the summer of 2027, with deaths expected to outnumber births by 2030.
The over-65 population is projected to grow by 44.7% over the next quarter century, while the number of people over 85 is expected to double, according to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). NI’s overall population is forecast to peak at 1.94 million in mid-2031, before declining to 1.91 million by 2049.
The figures for Scotland have not been released yet, but 2024 saw births fall to their lowest level since 1855 in the country.
While births keep declining, abortions continue to rise in England and Wales, with the latest statistics showing the figure at its highest level since abortion was legalized in 1967. There were 277,970 abortions among residents of England and Wales in 2023, up roughly 12% from the previous year, a 19 March report from the Department of Health and Social Care shows.
