The UK faces a “turning point” this year, with the number of deaths to outnumber births by ever-greater margins for the next 50 years, a think tank has predicted.
The impact, the Resolution Foundation said, will leave the country relying on immigration for population growth – just six months after the Office for National Statistics projected migration would drive a 5.9 per cent population increase by 2032.
But recent figures showing a fall in levels of migration to the UK, combined with the shift in ratio of births and deaths and rises in public spending, mean the think tank is warning of fewer people of working age, higher taxes and a more fragile political landscape.
In a statement to The Independent, Greg Thwaites, co-author of the think tank’s report called New Year Outlook 2026, said: “2026 could be a turning point year as deaths start to outnumber births so that, without immigration, the population would start to shrink.
“This may shift the conversation on migration away from arguments over whether the country is already ‘full’ and onto whether we want to address population decline. However, migration policy, and how much it should prioritise economic growth over other considerations, is likely to remain politically charged.”
The Resolution Foundation’s report said the number of births in the country had exceeded deaths almost every year since the turn of the 20th Century, except for 2020 due to the Covid pandemic, and again in 2023.
But after births just outweighed deaths in 2024, and are expected to “by an even narrower margin” last year, the body said, the experts behind the report say the figures show a trend whereby deaths will overtake births in the long term.
It warned that deaths could outnumber births by 100,000 annually by the mid-2040s.
Co-authored by Ruth Curtice, the report said: “These outturns [previous years’ figures on births and deaths] suggest that 2026 may be the first year in a new era when deaths exceed births by an ever-widening margin, forever closing a chapter in the demographics of this country that opened over a century ago.
“From then on, any population growth we do get is set to come from international net migration, which the latest data suggest is also plummeting, down by three-quarters from its recent peak to around 200,000 a year.”
Latest Office for National Statistics figures show fertility rates – the average number of children women would expect to have – plummeted to a record low of 1.4 in England and Wales in 2024. UK-wide rates have dropped more than any other G7 nation.
Nearly half of British adults are putting off or deciding against having children, with money worries a top factor, an Ipsos poll revealed last year.
A fall in the working-age population, which pays for elderly care and pensions, can provide a threat to public finances, the Office for Budget Responsibility has previously said.
In its outlook, the Resolution Foundation also questioned whether the government would bring down public spending to shrink the budget deficit, while forecasting a continuing low growth rate in average incomes, with a “nowhere-near-good-enough outlook for living standards”.
However, the report said child poverty will fall sharply following the abolition of the two-child benefit cap.
Under pressure from the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to cut net migration to the UK, claiming record high figures in 2023 had put housing and public services under too much strain.
“Taken together, these trends point to a country in the middle of a slow but consequential transition: fewer people of working age; a more fragile politics; higher taxes; and an economy that urgently needs new firms and new jobs to replace the old,” said the Resolution Foundation’s report.
“The story of 2026 is not one of crisis, but of drift finally giving way to change. Whether that change is managed or merely endured is the question that will define the years ahead.”
A spokesperson for the government would not comment on tax speculation, but said: “We are driving growth through a record £120bn in new capital spending, and bearing down on inflation, helping to support the Bank of England cut interest rates six times since the election.
“The budget doubled down on our work to grow the economy and create good jobs by maintaining the cap on corporation tax at 25 per cent, the lowest rate in the G7, supporting our high streets with permanently lower tax rates and making it easier for start-ups to scale and invest in the UK.”