Title

2016-based national population projections for Wales, 2018-2043

Last update

September 2020 September 2020

Next update

Not updated, this will be replaced by a future projection

Publishing organisation

Welsh Government

Source 1

2018-based national population projections for Wales, Office for National Statistics

Contact email

stats.popcensus@gov.wales

Designation

National Statistics

Geographical coverage

Wales

Languages covered

English and Welsh

Data licensing

You may use and re-use this data free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government License - see http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence

General description

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) produces national population projections for Wales, and the other UK countries (Release date: 11 June 2020). This dataset provides the Wales data from that source by gender, single year of age and each year from the base year of 2018, through the projection period to 2043.

Note that the projections become increasingly uncertain the further we try to look into the future.

Note also that these figures differ from the Wales data in the local authority population projections because the key aim of the local authority population projections is to produce robust local authority population projections for Wales, which reflect local trends in recent years while the main purpose of the national projections is to produce robust population projections for Wales which reflect national trends in recent years.

The national projections and the local authority projections are different for two main reasons:

1. The methodology used to produce assumptions in the local authority projections are different to those used in the national projections. Some of these are due to slightly different data sources.

Also, although one set of assumptions may fit well for a national trend, using similar assumptions may not always produce feasible results for all local authority areas because of the different nature and trends between local authorities.

2. The geographical level for which the assumptions are based and applied is also important. For example, it is not appropriate to sum local rates (eg fertility) to derive a national rate, and therefore a model operating at different geographic levels (but using rates) will produce different results for the different geographic levels.

Rounding applied

Data are rounded independently to the nearest whole number and may not add exactly. Mean and median ages are rounded to 2 decimal places and are not additive.

Revisions information

These data replaced the 2016 national population projections for Wales as the formal estimates of population growth.
On Monday 18 May 2020, the ONS issued a notice on its website informing users that they had identified an error affecting the 2018-based national population projections. The error was caused by incorrect processing of cross-border flows between Wales and England, resulting in the projected mid-2028 population for Wales being approximately 65,000 too low, and that for England being approximately 65,000 too high.
The ONS published corrected national projections for Wales on Thursday 11 June.

Statistical quality

See weblinks.

Keywords

Population projections; population growth; migration; natural change; births; deaths

Weblinks

National population projections: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationprojections;

Name

popu5037