Cardiff’s average age falls, while London bucks UK city trend

The UK has grown apart by age over the first two decades of the 21st century, according to analysis of Office for National Statistics data by the Resolution Foundation think tank.

The organisation said this has resulted in “large and expanding demographic gaps between places”, with coastal and rural areas expected to continue ageing quickly, while cities should remain relatively young as students and younger people tend to move there.

Across two decades, the typical age in villages has increased by nearly six years, from 41.6 years in 2001 to 47.4 years in 2023.

But researchers said what they called “core cities” including Bristol, Cardiff, Belfast and Glasgow have seen average ages fall slightly from 35 in 2001 to 34.5 in 2023.

The outlier when it comes to major cities is London, they said, which saw its average age rise in just over a decade, from 33.8 in 2011 to 35.8 in 2023.

Possible contributory factors included the rise in its population aged between 50 and 64, growing from 12% to 14%, as well as a fall in the proportion of children aged under five, from 7% to 6%.

The report suggested that, since Brexit, younger international migrants who had previously tended to favour a move to London have settled also in other big cities, leading to a more even distribution of this group.

It stated: “As international migration has boomed in the post-Brexit era, there are signs that young international migrants, particularly those in their mid-to-late 20s, are now more evenly distributed between London and other core cities.”

Falling birth rates nationally, which the authors describe as a “baby bust”, are noted to have been especially high in parts of inner London.

The city’s birth rate has fallen from 16 per 1,000 people in the 2000s to 14 per 1,000 people in the 2010s, which is a larger fall than the national decline.

The report warned that as the UK continues to age, there could be “profound implications for public services” such as schools and social care in the years to come.

It said: “We have shown that national demographic trends – including the post-Brexit migration regime and plummeting birth rates – have subtly reshaped the country’s map of ageing.

“But these demographic shifts also have important implications for key public services. Most obviously, a falling birth rate creates challenges for the country’s schools – with the number of primary school-age children having already fallen sharply in inner London.

“In principle, this decline in pupil numbers could ease state spending pressures. But in practice, the uneven rates of change across areas mean that costs may rise if school services can’t adapt quickly enough to changing pupil numbers.

“Meanwhile, older places and fast-ageing areas will likely see the demand for adult social care services to support older age groups continue to grow. Encouragingly, there is no evidence that local authorities are rationing their social care services in the oldest places.”

Uneven picture

Nye Cominetti, principal economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “Britain is getting older, but not at an even rate. The coast and the countryside, which were already older, are ageing fastest. In contrast, many major cities across the Midlands and the north are getting younger.

“London is the one city bucking this trend. Changing immigration flows since Brexit, combined with falling birth rates from a baby bust steeper than the national average, have worked together to age the capital over the past decade.

“These demographic trends will have profound implications for the local provision of public services, from education to health and care – and the Government will need to carefully consider their long-term consequences.”