Birmingham Population by Ward: How Many People Live in Birmingham

About 1.18 million people live in Birmingham. The official estimate for mid-2025 is 1,176,960, which is 5,960 fewer than a year earlier.

That small fall came in a year when the West Midlands and England both grew by 0.39%. Birmingham is still about 100,000 people bigger than it was in 2011, and its biggest ward holds three times as many people as its smallest. So how does that split across the city's 69 wards?

Article updated: September 2026

Birmingham here means the city council area: 69 wards running from Sutton Coldfield in the north to Longbridge in the south. It doesn't include Solihull or the Black Country towns next door, which have their own councils.

How Birmingham's Population Has Changed Since 2011

Birmingham has added about 103,000 people since mid-2011, a rise of 9.6%. That's growth, but a little slower than the West Midlands at 10.6% and England at 10.8%. The city still holds just under one in five West Midlands residents, and 2.0% of everyone in England.

No other city or district council in England covers as many people. Leeds is next, with about 841,000 at mid-2025, on the ONS local authority estimates.

The climb wasn't smooth. Birmingham grew every year to mid-2019, when it reached about 1.15 million. Then it shrank two years running, to about 1.14 million by mid-2021.

After that it grew fast. The city added almost 40,000 people in three years and reached 1,182,920 at mid-2024, the most people Birmingham has had in any year since 2011. The year to mid-2023 alone added about 16,000 people. Only the year to mid-2016 added more.

Then came the fall. Birmingham lost 5,960 people in the year to mid-2025, its first drop since the year to mid-2021. That's about one resident in every 200.

Plenty of places kept growing. The ONS mid-2025 population estimates show 240 of the 318 council areas in England and Wales got bigger that year, so Birmingham was one of the 78 that didn't. The West Midlands as a whole added about 24,000 people, and it was one of three English regions with more births than deaths, along with London and the East of England. The bulletin doesn't give a reason for Birmingham's own fall.

The same bulletin shows London fell too, by 0.29%. It was the only English region to shrink. Our London population page has the borough-by-borough figures.

The table shows Birmingham against the West Midlands and England at the key turning points: 2011, the 2019 high before the dip, the 2021 low, the 2024 peak and the latest year.

Source: ONS mid-year population estimates via Nomis, all ages. Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0.

Birmingham Population Density

Birmingham is a crowded city by English standards. The Census put it at 4,275 people per square kilometre in 2021, about 11,100 per square mile. England as a whole had 434, so Birmingham is nearly ten times as crowded.

The ONS puts it another way in its Census summary for Birmingham: about 30.5 people for every football pitch-sized piece of land, up from 28.6 in 2011. That made Birmingham the most densely populated council area in the West Midlands.

Inside the city the spread is wide. Sparkhill is the densest ward at 10,824 people per square kilometre, just ahead of Lozells on 10,788 and Alum Rock on 9,906.

At the other end, Sutton Walmley & Minworth has 965 people per square kilometre, less than a tenth of Sparkhill's figure. In all, 46 of the 69 wards are more crowded than the city figure of 4,275.

What the 2021 Census Shows About Households, Renting and Age

The 2021 Census shows Birmingham with bigger households, more renters and younger residents than England as a whole. It counted about 1.14 million people in Birmingham, 6.7% more than the roughly 1.07 million counted in 2011. That was faster than the West Midlands at 6.2% and a touch ahead of England at 6.6%.

The Census and the yearly estimates are different counts. The Census counts everyone once every ten years. The mid-year estimates are the ONS's yearly update in between, worked out each year from the last Census by adding births, taking away deaths and allowing for people moving in and out. The mid-2021 estimate for Birmingham is 1,143,285, about 1,600 below the Census count of 1,144,919. That's why the two tables show slightly different figures for 2021.

Birmingham had about 423,000 households. In the Census definition, a household is one person living alone, or a group of people at the same address who share a kitchen and a living space.

The Census resident counts put about 1.12 million people in those households, about 2.6 per household. Across England it was 2.4. The other 27,000 or so residents lived in communal establishments such as care homes and halls of residence.

A higher share of households rent in Birmingham than across England. The Census tenure figures show 53.5% owned their home, either outright, with a mortgage or through shared ownership. Across England the figure was 62.3%.

22.6% of Birmingham households rented privately, mostly from a landlord or letting agent, against 20.5% across England. A further 23.5% rented from the council or a housing association, against 17.1% across England.

Private renting is the part that grew. The ONS figures for Birmingham show its share rising from 17.9% of households in 2011 to 22.6% in 2021.

Owning fell a little over the same ten years, from 55.2% to 52.7% of households. These figures leave out shared ownership. Including it, the 2021 share is 53.5%.

Social renting dipped from 24.2% of households in 2011 to 23.5% in 2021.

Ward by ward, the split is much sharper. In Bournbrook & Selly Park, 54.2% of households rent privately, and in Ladywood it's 52.0%. In Castle Vale it's 9.5%.

Ownership runs from 85.0% in Sutton Wylde Green down to 17.1% in Nechells, where most households rent from the council or a housing association. In six wards, more households rent privately than own their home: Ladywood, Soho & Jewellery Quarter, Bournbrook & Selly Park, North Edgbaston, Bordesley & Highgate and Nechells.

In some wards social renting is the biggest group. In Newtown, 64.9% of households rent from the council or a housing association. In Nechells it's 58.2%, and in Castle Vale 55.0%. In eight wards, more households rent from the council or a housing association than own their home.

Birmingham is also young. The ONS summary for Birmingham shows the median age rose from 32 to 34 between the two Censuses. That was the lowest in the West Midlands in 2021, and six years below England's 40.

The city got a little older all the same. Between the two Censuses there were about 31,000 more people aged 50 to 64, a fifth more than in 2011, and about 7,000 fewer children aged four and under.

Birmingham Population by Ward

Birmingham's 69 wards vary a lot in size. Alum Rock, in the east of the city, is the biggest, with about 28,000 residents at the 2021 Census. Sutton Wylde Green, in the north, is the smallest at about 9,300, a third of that.

Sparkbrook & Balsall Heath East comes second with about 27,300 people, and Ladywood third with about 25,700. Ladywood also has more households than any other ward, about 13,000, with fewer than two people per household on average, against about 2.6 across the city.

The table runs from the most residents to the fewest, with the Birmingham total at the bottom. Owned % counts households that own outright, with a mortgage or through shared ownership. Private rented % counts households renting privately, mostly from a landlord or letting agent.

Source: Census 2021 via Nomis: TS001 usual residents, TS006 population density and TS054 tenure. Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0.

Add the wards together and you get 1,144,911 residents, eight fewer than the city total. That's because the ONS adds small random changes to Census counts to protect personal data, so small areas don't always add up exactly to the total.

A big ward isn't always a crowded one. Sutton Vesey has more than 20,000 residents but only 1,937 people per square kilometre, while Lozells has about 12,000 people at more than five times that density.

For any one part of the city, the ward row tells you far more than the city total. Private renting alone runs from under one household in ten to more than half, depending on the ward.

Prices, rents and yields for the city are in our Birmingham buy to let guide. To see how those yields compare with other places, our page on the best rental yields in the UK lists cities and towns across the country side by side. If you're looking at houses for sale in Birmingham on a tighter budget, our guide ranks 20 cheaper postcode districts across Birmingham and nearby Sandwell. Our UK rental market guide tracks how average rents have moved across the country since 2015.

Current deals from across the UK are on our buy to let properties for sale page. There are more on our UK investment properties and below market value properties pages.

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