Births and deaths

Each year, more people are born in London than die. Just under 116,000 babies were born in 2020 and nearly 59,000 died. Although births continued to decrease somewhat, they were at a broadly similar level in 2020 to 2019, whereas deaths show a substantial increase presumably due to the COVID-19 pandemic with a 10,000 increase on the previous year when around 49,000 people died. So, in 2020, the net natural population change was an increase of 57,000 whereas in 2019 it was 71,000.

The number of births in London has fallen slightly from the peak of 134,000 following a mini baby boom in years running up to 2012. Newham and Tower Hamlets were the boroughs with the highest levels of net births in 2020, with 3,800 and 3,086 respectively.