ONS life tables confirm UK gains in life expectancy have flatlined since around 2011. A 20-country study finds the slowdown wasn't unique to Britain — but no other country's was as sharp.
UK period life expectancy at birth rose steadily for three decades: up 7.6 years for men and 5.6 years for women between 1980–82 and 2010–12, a gain of roughly two and a half years a decade for men and two for women.1 Then it nearly stopped. From 2010–12 to 2019–21, male life expectancy was flat at 78.7 years; female life expectancy edged up by just five weeks.1 The COVID-19 pandemic then pulled both down further before a partial recovery.1
A 2025 Global Burden of Disease sub-analysis compared annual life-expectancy gains before and after 2011 across 16 EEA countries and the four UK nations — a set that includes three other G7 economies, France, Germany and Italy.2 Every country slowed after 2011 bar Norway; the 20-country average gain nearly halved, from 0.23 years a year to 0.15.2 England's slowdown, from 0.25 to 0.07 years a year, was the steepest of all 20 — meaning France, Germany and Italy each slowed by less.2 A separate US study finds a similarly severe stall, to 0.06 years a year in 2010–19, though measured over a slightly different window.3
The Lancet analysis covers England plus 16 EEA countries; it doesn't include Canada or Japan on the same basis, so this piece can't rank the UK against the full G7 on one consistent scale — separate peer-reviewed work finds Canada also stalled and the US fell further still, but using different methods and windows.4 No cited study isolates a single cause: the GBD analysis traces the slowdown to rising cardiovascular and blood-pressure risk, not to any specific policy.2
Researchers agree the slowdown is real; what caused it is disputed.2
Public health researchers including McKee, Hiam and Dorling argue that cuts to NHS, social care and welfare spending since 2010 hit the poorest hardest and slowed mortality improvement across the UK.4
The GBD analysis attributes the slowdown mainly to stalled or rising cardiovascular risk — blood pressure, cholesterol and obesity — across nearly every country studied, UK included, without formally testing an austerity link.2