54% growth in people aged 90 and over in 20 years

There has been rapid growth in the UK ‘very old’ population with a rise of nearly 54% in UK residents aged 90 and over since 2004.

There are now an estimated 625,00 people in this older population age bracket, according to the latest mid-year population estimates from the Office for National Statistics.

The details are contained in the ONS annual mid-year population estimates of people aged 90 years and over by sex and single year of age to 105 years and over.

The population aged 90 and over is also continuing to rise, according to the data, with an increase of 2.2% since mid-2023. The number of centenarians (people aged 100 and over) has doubled since 2004 to 16,600.

Key findings:

• There were 625,000 people aged 90 or over in the UK in 2024 – an increase of 53.7% since 2004
• Of those aged 90 and over, 84.5% were aged 95 years or younger. Growth in numbers has been faster at the oldest ages
• There were 16,600 centenarians (people aged 100 years and over) in the UK in 2024, twice the number seen in 2004
• The number of men at older ages is increasing faster than the number of women. Between 2004 and 2024 the number of men aged 90 years or over has more than doubled, while the number of women has increased by around one-third.
• Men made up one-third (33.7%) of people aged 90 years and over in 2024, and nearly one-fifth (18.5%) of centenarians.
• Wales had the highest rate of centenarians (25.9 per 100,000 people) in the UK. The rate of centenarians has increased in all four UK countries.

ONS expert Kerry Gadsdon said: “Despite a steady decline in numbers of births after the post-World War One peak, the number of centenarians has continued to grow. The number has doubled in the past 20 years and in 2024 around one in every 4,200 people in the UK were centenarians.

“This increase is largely because of past improvements in mortality, going back many decades, with more people surviving to older ages. These improvements are because of factors such as improvements in living standards and public health, along with advances in medical treatments.”