Dependent children per family with children

What it means: a household is one person living alone, or a group of people living at the same address who share cooking facilities or a living room. There were 29.0 million UK households in 2025, and 27.8% were one person living alone in 1996. The 8.5 million families with dependent children (under 16, or 16 to 18 and in full-time education) have 1.74 children on average, against 1.81 in 1996, and 14.1% have three or more. These are estimates from the Labour Force Survey, which has had falling response rates since 2020, so small changes between years may not be real. Shown for context.

Source: ONS, families and households in the UK, 2025, tables 3, 4 and 5.