Compare · UN World Population Prospects 2024

United Kingdom and United States, side by side

The United Kingdom in 2026: half the people are older than 41. The United States: half are older than 40.

UN estimates for mid-2023: United Kingdom 68,682,962 people · United States 343,477,335

United Kingdom 69.9 million people Half are older than 41 20 in 100 are 65 or older

United States 349 million people Half are older than 40 19 in 100 are 65 or older

How to read this: each pyramid stacks a place’s people by age — babies at the bottom, the oldest at the top, men on the left and women on the right. A wide bottom means many children; a wide top means many older people.

Compare shapes Compare sizes

Each bar is a share of its own place’s people, so a small country and a large one can be read side by side.

Year 2026 · UN projection

estimatesprojections

men women projected

Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries

GBR × USA · 2026 · age groups

If each place were 100 people

Shrink each population to 100 people and count them. Dots are children under 15, filled squares are people aged 15 to 64, and open squares are people 65 and over. The picture follows the year slider above.

United Kingdom

Children, under 15: 17
Aged 15 to 64: 63
Aged 65 and over: 20

United States

Children, under 15: 17
Aged 15 to 64: 64
Aged 65 and over: 19

GBR × USA · families and lifetimes

Children, and how long lives last

If the birth rates of this year held for a whole lifetime, a woman in the United Kingdom would have about 1.5 children and a woman in the United States about 1.6. Babies born this year can expect about 82 years of life in the United Kingdom and about 80 in the United States.

Children per woman, 2026

Each figure is one child: how many children a woman would have in her lifetime at that year’s rates.

United Kingdom 1.5

United States 1.6

The dashed line at 2.1 is about what it takes for each generation to replace the one before it, leaving migration aside.

How long a newborn can expect to live, 2026

Each block is ten years of life, if the death rates of that year stayed the same all life long.

United Kingdom 82 years

United States 80 years

Hatched marks are UN projections (medium variant), not measurements.

GBR × USA · 1950–2100 · how many

How big, and where they are heading

The United States has about 5 times as many people as the United Kingdom: 349 million against 69.9 million.

Set each against its own 1950 self and the United Kingdom's population is 1.4 times what it was in 1950, the United States' population is 2.3 times what it was in 1950.

Looking ahead: the United Kingdom's population is expected to peak in 2072, and the United States' population is still growing in 2100. In 2100: 74.3 million in the United Kingdom, 421 million in the United States (UN projection, medium).

Show the numbers

Year	United Kingdom: people	United States: people	United Kingdom: half older than	United States: half older than	United Kingdom: children per woman	United States: children per woman	United Kingdom: life expectancy	United States: life expectancy
1950	50.1210 million	154.203 million	34.9	30.0	2.22	3.09	68.6	68.1
1960	52.5386 million	180.275 million	35.5	29.3	2.70	3.73	71.0	69.8
1970	55.6638 million	207.796 million	34.2	27.7	2.42	2.52	71.9	70.7
1980	56.2821 million	229.859 million	34.3	30.1	1.89	1.86	73.6	73.7
1990	57.3679 million	253.373 million	35.9	32.9	1.83	2.07	75.7	75.4
2000	59.0573 million	281.484 million	37.6	35.3	1.64	2.03	77.8	76.8
2010	63.0065 million	311.063 million	39.2	36.9	1.92	1.92	80.4	78.7
2023	68.6830 million	343.477 million	40.8	39.0	1.56	1.62	81.3	79.3
2030*	71.2870 million	355.650 million	41.7	40.6	1.52	1.63	82.4	80.4
2040*	73.7746 million	370.209 million	43.1	41.8	1.53	1.64	83.8	81.8
2050*	75.5047 million	380.847 million	43.9	42.9	1.55	1.64	85.1	83.2
2060*	76.0104 million	388.918 million	45.7	44.1	1.56	1.64	86.3	84.6
2070*	76.0491 million	398.218 million	46.9	44.7	1.57	1.64	87.4	85.8
2080*	75.9562 million	407.080 million	47.4	45.1	1.58	1.65	88.5	87.0
2090*	75.3783 million	414.458 million	48.0	45.8	1.59	1.65	89.5	88.1
2100*	74.3054 million	421.279 million	48.9	46.3	1.59	1.65	90.6	89.2

* UN projection, medium variant. People at mid-year; ages and life expectancy in years.

GBR − USA · 1950–2100 · every age

Which ages each place has more of

Each column is a year and each row an age, from babies at the bottom to 100 at the top. The shade of a cell shows which place has more of its people at that age — the key beside the picture tells you which shade is the United Kingdom and which is the United States, and the in-between shade means the same. Because it compares shares, a small place and a large one can be compared fairly.

236 countries · 1950–2100

Where they sit among all countries

Every country in the world, every year from 1950 to 2100. The grey cloud shows where most countries are; the United Kingdom is drawn in solid blue squares and the United States in open orange squares, so you can see whether each is ahead of the crowd, behind it or in the middle.

More comparisons

Keep exploring

Each place on its own: United Kingdom · United States. Or pick any two places with the boxes at the top of this page.

Other comparisons

Apparatus

Sources and method

Every figure for United Kingdom and United States is the United Nations Population Division's, from World Population Prospects 2024: counted to 2023, and the medium projection for each year after that. Both places are taken from the same release and the same tables, which is what makes them comparable at all.

The working behind the median age, the rounding in the “100 people” pictures and the reason the regions are kept out of the all-country views are all set out in the method.

This is one of 250 pairs with a page. The boxes at the top will take any other two places you want to see side by side.

Sources: UN WPP 2024 · flag-icons. Every source, its licence and how to cite it →

Verified 2026-09-30 · 73 canaries