People Without Children in the UK: The Statistics

Around 18% of women in England and Wales who completed their childbearing years by 2020 had not had children, a figure that has stayed close to one in five for decades, while the number of adults reaching older age without children is projected to rise sharply.

This page pulls together the main published statistics on people without children in the UK, drawn from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It covers how many adults are childless, how that varies by generation, the shape of households without children, and the later-life picture. Where a figure carries an estate planning angle, that is flagged, because arrangements can look different when there are no children as default heirs or attorneys. This is general information, not advice.

Key figures at a glance

The clearest single measure of people without children is completed childlessness, the share of women who reach the end of their childbearing years without having had a child. In England and Wales that sits at around 18% for the 1975 cohort, and the wider household and later-life data below add context. Every row carries its named source and reference period.

Figures are as published by the ONS on the dates shown and may be revised in later releases. Statistical percentages are reproduced as stated by the source and have not been re-rounded.

How many people in the UK are without children?

Among women born in 1975 in England and Wales, 18% had not had children by age 45, the point at which childbearing is treated as complete, according to the ONS Childbearing for women born in different years: 2020 release (published 27 January 2022). A further 17% had only one child. At household level, 42.2% of UK families had no children living with them in 2024 (ONS, Families and households in the UK: 2024, published 23 July 2025).

The two measures answer different questions. Completed childlessness counts adults who never had a child, while the household figure of 42.2% (ONS, Families and households in the UK: 2024, published 23 July 2025) also includes couples whose grown children have left home. Both are relevant to estate planning, though for different reasons, since one speaks to who might inherit and the other to who is around day to day.

Childlessness by generation

Completed childlessness has risen across generations. Of women born in 1975, 18% were childless by age 45, compared with 13% of their mothers' generation born in 1949 (ONS Childbearing, 2020 release, published January 2022). Women born in 1965 are around twice as likely to have remained childless as women born in 1945.

Source: ONS, Childbearing for women born in different years, England and Wales: 2020 (released 27 January 2022). Figures for age 30 reflect childlessness at that age, not completed childlessness.

The age-30 figure stands out. Half of women born in 1990 had not had a child by their 30th birthday, the first cohort where that was the case (ONS Childbearing, 2020 release, published January 2022). Later childbearing does not mean the same share will remain childless for life, so it can be worth reading the 50% as a marker of delay as well as of childlessness.

Households without children

There were 28.6 million households in the UK in 2024, and one-person households made up 29.5% of them, around 8.4 million people living alone (ONS, Families and households in the UK: 2024, published 23 July 2025). Of everyone living alone, 51.1% were aged 65 or over, about 4.3 million people, up from 45.5% a decade earlier.

Almost one in three UK households is a single person, and just over half of people living alone are now aged 65 or over.

A household without children today is not necessarily a person without children, since many older people living alone have adult children elsewhere. But the overlap matters for planning. Where someone lives alone and has no children, there may be no obvious person nearby to hold a lasting power of attorney or to act as executor, which is one reason some people in this position look at those documents earlier.

Childlessness and later life

The number of older people without children is projected to grow. The ONS estimated 23,000 women aged 80 in England and Wales had no children in 2019, projected to reach 66,000 by 2045, over three times as many, as the larger 1960s cohorts reach that age (ONS, Living longer: implications of childlessness, published 17 August 2020).

The same ONS analysis found that, among people aged 65 and over in 2016 to 2017, those without children were less likely to receive informal care (16%, against 21% for those with children) and more likely to receive formal care (12%, against 7%); those figures come from the ONS Living longer: implications of childlessness analysis, published 17 August 2020. Those without children were also more likely to expect to need formal care in future. This is one reason later-life care planning, considered in a way that respects the local authority rules on deliberate deprivation of assets, tends to feature in conversations with people who have no children. It can be worth discussing the impact of care fees with a qualified professional rather than acting on figures alone.

What the numbers mean

Read together, the data suggests a slow shift rather than a sudden one. Completed childlessness has hovered near one in five for decades, but the number of older adults without children is set to climb, and single-person living is now the most common household type after couples. In our view, that combination is why estate planning without children is becoming a more common conversation, not a niche one.

For someone without children, some default assumptions fall away. Under the intestacy rules that apply when there is no valid will, an estate can pass to parents, then siblings, then wider relatives, and where no qualifying relatives can be found it can pass to the Crown as ownerless property (gov.uk, rules of intestacy, as at July 2026, subject to change). Many people without children choose to set out their own wishes instead, which is covered in our How to Write a Will guide and, for the wider picture, our estate planning guide.

Inheritance tax also looks different without direct descendants. The residence nil-rate band of up to £175,000 depends on a home passing to children or other direct descendants, so it is often unavailable where there are none, though the standard nil-rate band of £325,000 per person still applies (gov.uk/inheritance-tax, as at July 2026, subject to change). Some people without children direct part of their estate to charity, and where at least 10% of the net estate passes to charity the inheritance tax rate on the rest can fall from 40% to 36% (gov.uk/inheritance-tax, as at July 2026, subject to change). These are general points, and the right approach depends on individual circumstances. Our note on estate planning for single people looks at some of the same themes.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

The childbearing statistics above are published for England and Wales, and household figures are UK-wide, but the legal consequences differ by nation. Scotland has its own succession law, including legal rights that can give a spouse or civil partner a fixed share, and its intestacy rules differ from those in England and Wales. Northern Ireland has a separate but broadly similar system. Anyone without children whose estate touches more than one UK nation may find it worth taking advice in each.

Sources and methodology

Every statistic on this page comes from a named ONS release and has been checked against the source. Completed childlessness is measured at age 45, the point the ONS treats as the end of childbearing; household figures are UK-wide snapshots for 2024. Figures are reproduced as published and may be revised in later releases.

• ONS, Childbearing for women born in different years, England and Wales: 2020 (released 27 January 2022): completed childlessness by cohort, and childlessness by age 30. View source.
• ONS, Families and households in the UK: 2024 (published 23 July 2025): total households, one-person households, and people living alone. View source.
• ONS, Living longer: implications of childlessness among tomorrow's older population (published 17 August 2020): projected numbers of older people without children and care-receipt patterns. View source.
• GOV.UK, Inheritance Tax and Rules of intestacy: thresholds, rates and default inheritance rules, as at July 2026 and subject to change. Inheritance Tax · Intestacy.

Frequently asked questions