Suicide mortality rate

In 2020

  • In 2020, there were 5,224 suicides registered in England and Wales, equivalent to an age-standardised mortality rate of 10.0 deaths per 100,000 people and statistically significantly lower than the 2019 rate of 11.0 deaths per 100,000.
  • The decrease is likely to be driven by two factors; a decrease in male suicides at the start of the coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic, and delays in death registrations because of the pandemic.
  • Around three-quarters of registered suicide deaths in 2020 were for men (3,925 deaths; 75.1%), which follows a consistent trend back to the mid-1990s.
  • The England and Wales male suicide rate of 15.4 deaths per 100,000 is statistically significantly lower than in 2019 but consistent with rates in earlier years; for females, the rate was 4.9 deaths per 100,000, consistent with the past decade.
  • Males and females aged 45 to 49 years had the highest age-specific suicide rate (24.1 male and 7.1 female deaths per 100,000).
  • For the fifth consecutive year, London has had the lowest suicide rate of any region of England (7.0 deaths per 100,000), while the highest rate in 2020 was in the North East with 13.3 deaths per 100,000.

See the ONS 2020 report for more information and a definition for suicide

Information on the suicide prevention profile is available from Public Health England. If you are struggling to cope, please call Samaritans free on 116 123 (UK and Ireland), email jo@samaritans.org, or visit the Samaritans website to find details of the nearest branch.

Further information is available on the Suicide Prevention Profile.

Further Quality and Methodology information is available.

Sub-categories

Choose categories from the dropdowns below to see different breakdowns of the data. Some will not be available until a higher level is chosen.

Download headline data (.csv) Download source data (.csv)

Download source data for disaggregations (.csv)

Headline data

Source: Office for National Statistics (ONS)

Geographical Area: United Kingdom

Unit of Measurement: Rate per 100,000 population

Footnote: Suicide rates per 100,000 population have been age-standardised to allow comparison between populations which may contain different proportions of people of different ages. Suicide rates by age are based on age-specific suicide rates per 100,000 population. Age-specific rates calculated where there are fewer than 20 deaths may be unreliable. These figures are denoted with a 'u' in Source 1. Rates were not calculated where there were fewer than 3 death registrations. Data from 2019 and onwards is available for England and Wales only.

This table provides metadata for the actual indicator available from UK statistics closest to the corresponding global SDG indicator. Please note that even when the global SDG indicator is fully available from UK statistics, this table should be consulted for information on national methodology and other UK-specific metadata information.

This table provides information on metadata for SDG indicators as defined by the UN Statistical Commission. Complete global metadata is provided by the UN Statistics Division.

Source 1

Source 2

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