Earth's population to top 8.09bn on New Year's Day – but global birth rate slows down
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The population of the Earth is set to reach 8.09 billion come New Year’s Day, although the global birth rate is slowing according to experts. The huge number is an increase of more than 71 million people - more than everyone in the United Kingdom. The 0.9% increase in 2024 was a slight slowdown from last year, when the world population grew by 75 million people.
In January 2025, 4.2 births and 2.0 deaths were expected worldwide every second, according to the estimates by the US Census Bureau. The United States was expected to have one birth every 9 seconds and one death every 9.4 seconds in January 2025. International migration was expected to add one person to the U.S. population every 23.2 seconds.
According to the latest information by the Office for National Statistics (OFNG) the UK population at mid-year 2023 was estimated to be 68.3 million, an increase of 1.0% since mid-2022. The population grew faster in England and in Wales (both 1.0%) than in Scotland (0.8%) or Northern Ireland (0.5%).
Net international migration was the main contributor to population increase for all four countries of the UK in the year to mid-2023. There were 16,300 more deaths than births across the UK in the year to mid-2023; in England and Northern Ireland there were more births than deaths while Scotland and Wales had more deaths than births.
