Conor Stewart
Research expert covering health & pharmaceuticals in the UK & Europe
Contraception in the United Kingdom (UK) - Statistics & Facts
In 2021, the rate of births in the United Kingdom fell to its second-lowest recorded figure, at 10.4 live births per 1,000 population. As recent as 2010, the birth rate was at 13 live births per 10,000. The number of births has also generally been falling in Europe across the same time interval, with 3.9 million births recorded in the EU in 2022. Alongside the general fall in fertility rate, the number of teenage pregnancies in the United Kingdom is continuing to fall.
Contact with sexual health services
The availability of sexual health services in the United Kingdom has increased, and so too has the number of individuals availing of the services provided. The main reasons for individuals attending sexual health services are to obtain information on available contraceptives, to ask for sexual health advice and to receive contraceptives. Contraceptive use in the United Kingdom is relatively high compared to many other European countries In 2022, the prevalence of contraceptive use in the United Kingdom was 76 percent.Type of contraception used in the UK
The most popular method of contraception used in the United Kingdom is the male condome, followed by the pill. Women under the age of 25 are most likely to use dependent forms of contraception such as the pill or condom, while women over 25 years of age used long-acting reversible contraceptives. Since 2004, there has been a notable decrease in the number of emergency contraceptives provided, falling to 38 thousand oral contraceptive items provided by sexual and reproductive health services in 2020/21, although this increased again in the two following years.
