The UK census* is held every ten years*, and has been since 1801*.
* 1941 was skipped for wartime reasons
* Technically it's three censuses, one for England and Wales, one for Scotland and one for Northern Ireland
* Scotland held their last census a year after everyone else due to the pandemic
It's always around the end of March or the start of April, this because it minimises potential distortion due to seasonal agricultural work or holiday travel. It's never the Easter weekend, instead always 2-4 weeks away.
1981: Sunday 5 April (Easter April 19)
1991: Sunday 21 April (Easter March 31)
2001: Sunday 29 April (Easter April 15)
2011: Sunday 27 March (Easter April 24)
2021: Sunday 21 March (Easter April 4)
2031: Sunday ?? ????? (Easter April 13)
We don't yet know when the 2031 census will be because they haven't decided, but my best guess would be 24th March or 27th April.
And that means we are pretty much exactly halfway between censuses, the last being five years ago and the next in five years time. Assuming it happens, that is.
It takes a very long time to prepare a census, in this case six years. In July 2025 the Cabinet Office wrote to the Office for National Statistics requesting them "to conduct a mandatory, questionnaire-based, whole-population census of England and Wales in 2031", having deemed it nationally worthwhile. Two subsequent consultations, nowclosed, have considered which topics should be included and "the needs for additional response options in a future ethnicity standard". If you don't ask optimal questions you get suboptimal data.
A Census Taskforce is now scopingplans and building on the experience of Census 2021, preparing for "an inclusive, digital-first census". You can thus expect to complete an online form in spring 2031, certain previous questions tweaked, with postal or face-to-face alternatives for those unable to access digital services. But what if it never happens?
This Labour government clearly believes in the importance of a national snapshot because they've triggered the process again. But some politicians have argued that we could instead sample the population, asking say 5%, and this would give broadly accurate answers while saving a lot of money. More drastically a White Paper in 2018 suggested that the Conservative government's ambition was that "other sources of data" would be used after 2021, thus the population would never need to be asked again.
The UK census is the gold standard in data collection but this counts for nothing in the world of politics. Indeed it would be a point of some pride for certain politicians to cancel a bureaucratic state-focused busybody survey prying into the lives of private citizens, saving millions of taxpayers money at the same time. Populists famously have no time for experts, so scrapping the census would be a bold policy win. Who needs accurate data when we could instead have lower taxes, or at least the promise of them?
We're due a new government by 2029, at this stage likely to be more right wing than the current administration. If that's the case then 2029 is plenty early enough to scrap a census in 2031, saving the majority of the intended costs. It'd be an easy policy win, a promise of hundreds of millions saved, also a trimming of the civil service' remit, also a swipe at woke questions about gender. One successful manifesto promise (or one capricious whim) and Census 2031 would be dead in the water.
We'd cope without a census because everything's estimatable. But without accurate data several decisions would become harder to make, that is assuming the government of the day were interested in data which isn't a given, because who needs facts when you have common sense? It would however be a damned shame to scrap the census for short term reasons, ending a sequence stretching back over 200 years, just because capricious politicians weren't interested in it any more.
UK
England
London
Tower Hamlets
1801
10,942,000
8,331,000
1,097,000
144,000
1851
27,369,000
15,289,000
2,651,000
377,000
1901
38,237,000
30,072,000
6,510,000
597,000
1911
42,082,000
33,561,000
7,162,000
570,000
1921
44,026,000
35,230,000
7,387,000
529,000
1931
46,075,000
37,359,000
8,110,000
489,000
1941
48,216,000
38,084,000
8,615,000
419,000
1951
50,225,000
38,669,000
8,197,000
231,000
1961
52,709,000
41,159,000
7,997,000
206,000
1971
55,515,000
43,461,000
7,452,000
166,000
1981
55,100,000
45,978,000
6,713,000
143,000
1991
57,439,000
48,198,000
6,394,000
153,000
2001
59,113,000
49,139,000
7,172,000
196,000
2011
63,182,000
53,107,000
8,174,000
254,000
2021
67,026,000
56,490,000
8,799,800
310,000
2031
????
????
????
????
We are pretty much exactly halfway between censuses, the last being five years ago and the next in five years time, but only assuming the next one happens.
