The UK population has risen steadily over the last decade, but UK cities have experienced different scales of population growth.
The UK population has risen steadily over the last decade, increasing by 7.5 per cent between 2008 and 2018. However, UK cities have experienced different scales of population growth.
Cities in the south tend to grow more quickly than elsewhere. While four of the fastest growing cities are located in the south, six of the bottom 10 cities are located in the north of the country.
With a 20 per cent increase in population size, Coventry saw the highest growth over the past decade, followed by Exeter and Peterborough (14 per cent, see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Top 10- UK cities population growth by age band
Source: ONS, 2019. Population estimates, 2008 and 2018 data.
Growth is not spread evenly across all age groups.
While in several fast-growing cities such as Slough, Milton Keynes and Peterborough growth is largely due to an increase in the population aged under 15 – likely because of higher birth rates – the growth of people aged 15 to 34 is much more significant in Coventry and Exeter.
In absolute terms, Coventry’s number of 25-34-year olds grew from 44,400 in 2008 to more than 66,650 in 2018. This contrasts to cities such as Slough and Milton Keynes, which lost population aged 15-34. This is likely to be linked to the presence of universities in the first two cities.
The data also shows that the number of people aged 55-64 and 65+ has grown everywhere, which illustrates the ageing of UK cities. This is particularly true for cities such as Milton Keynes, Slough and Peterborough, and can be explained by the ageing of the population which initially moved in the new towns in the second half of the twentieth century.
Figure 2: Bottom 10- population growth by age band (2008/18)
Source: ONS, 2019. Population estimates, 2008 and 2018 data.
Which UK cities have seen the slowest population growth?
Sunderland, on the other hand, has seen the slowest growth (0.2 per cent) followed by Blackpool (0.4 per cent).
A common feature across most of the bottom 10 cities is the hollowing out of the population aged 15-24 (see Figure 2). This can be explained by a brain drain phenomenon which pushes the student population to move to other cities: Burnley and Hull have respectively lost 19 per cent and 18 per cent of their 15-24s. Sunderland and Middlesbrough also experienced a shrinking of the population aged 35-44. But these people are likely not to have moved far, or within a commutable distance: data on migration shows that neighbouring authorities such as County Durham seeing large inflows from both cities.
Finally, the large share of the population aged 65 and over in the total growth shows that slow-growing cities are ageing more quickly than the fast-growing ones- a phenomenon which is not compensated by a growth in the under 15s.
What are the policy implications?
This breakdown between age groups allows us to understand the scale of the challenge faced by cities, and has two separate policy implications.
Fast growing and dynamic cities must deal with the cost of growth such as housing costs or traffic congestion. Meanwhile, if cities with a sluggish population growth want to perform better in the next decade, they should focus on getting greater numbers of higher-skilled, better-paid jobs to allow them to attract and retain more people.
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