About this data
- The total fertility rate is the average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime if she experienced the birth rates of each age group in that year. It is a summary of a single year's birth rates, not a count of how many children women actually have.
- In rich countries, a fertility rate of about 2.1 is needed for each generation to replace itself, without migration. This is called replacement level.
- From 1974, the rate is calculated from births by mother's age in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and ONS's latest population estimates. ONS's published UK rate stopped in 2021 and uses older population estimates; the two agree within 0.02 up to 2011 (except 2008), and differ by up to 0.04 from 2012 because those population estimates have since been revised.
- 2025 isn't shown because Northern Ireland's figures for 2025 by mother's age are not yet published. England and Wales's rate fell to 1.39 in 2025, and Scotland's to 1.23.
This chart appears in Births and fertility rates.