News

Welsh fertility rates remain well below population replacement level

08 Sep 2026 3 minute read

A woman holding the feet of a new baby. Photo Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire

Nation.Cymru Staff and agencies

Fertility rates across Wales remained well below the level needed to maintain the population last year, as the overall rate across England and Wales fell to a new record low.

The fertility rate is defined as the average number of live children women would expect to have across their childbearing life, with the data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

ONS figures showed the overall fertility rate for Wales has dropped to a new low, falling from 1.35 in 2024 to 1.33 in 2025, and for England and Wales to a record-low of 1.39.

For a country’s population to remain stable over time – discounting any impact from migration – the rate needs to be around 2.1.

In Wales, Swansea had the lowest rate at 1.18, while the highest rates were in Carmarthenshire, Ynys Môn and Newport (all 1.48).

There were 26,282 total births in Wales last year, 2% down on 2024’s figures. Across England and Wales there were 585,396 live births in total, the lowest number since 1977.

The average age of parents increased slightly year on year, the ONS data showed.

Mothers had a provisional standardised mean age of 31.1 in 2025, up from 31.0 in 2024.

Fathers had an average age of 34.0 last year, a rise from 33.9.

Parents have been getting older since 1975, when mothers were on average aged 26.4 and fathers were 29.5 years old.

Some 12 of the top 25 local authorities in England and Wales with the lowest fertility rates in 2025 were in London; The City of London had the lowest rate in 2025, at 0.37 children per woman; Cambridge had 0.87; Islington and Westminster were both at 0.90.

Other areas with the lowest rates in 2025 were Brighton & Hove (0.95), the London borough of Southwark (0.97) and Norwich (0.98).

At the other end of the chart, Pendle in Lancashire and Luton in Bedfordshire were tied with the highest rate (1.93), followed by Oldham in Greater Manchester (1.87), Bradford in West Yorkshire (1.84) and Barking & Dagenham in London (1.83).

The proportion of births where the mother was born outside the UK has been on a steady upwards trend for a number of years, climbing from 20.8% in 2005 to 27.5% in 2015 and 34.6% last year.

India was the most common country of birth for non-UK-born mothers in 2025, the fourth year in a row it took the top spot.

It was followed by Pakistan, Nigeria and Romania.

Some 56.4% of births last year were to parents both of whom were born in the UK, down from 62.7% a decade earlier in 2015.

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