Skip to main content

Help us improve the National Data Library - complete this short survey

Close survey banner

Health Expectancies at birth and age 65 in the United Kingdom

Publisher
Office for National Statistics
Updated
8 July 2026
Topic
Health

Summary

This report presents the latest figures on male and female health expectancy, at birth and at age 65, for the UK and its four constituent countries. While life expectancy (LE) provides an estimate of average expected life-span, healthy life expectancy (HLE) divides total LE into years spent in good or ‘not good’ health. Disability-free life expectancy (DFLE) divides LE into years lived with and without a chronic illness or disability. These figures are three-year averages. LE is taken from the UK national interim life tables published annually by ONS, and the measures of health and chronic illness from the General Household Survey (GHS) in Great Britain and the Continuous Household Survey (CHS) in Northern Ireland. Source agency: Office for National Statistics Designation: National Statistics Language: English Alternative title: National Health Expectancies

Data links

Link Format Preview Updated
2010 to 2012 11/10/2016
2008-10 HTML 1/9/2013
2005-2007 HTML 11/3/2013
stakeholder review - 2008 HTML 11/3/2013
1981-2001 HTML 11/3/2013
Update to the methodology used to calculate health expectancies HTML 8/3/2013

Is this data/dataset useful? Give us feedback

Contact

Enquiries

ons.geography@ons.gov.uk

Freedom of information (FOI) requests

FOI.Team@ons.gov.uk

Edit this dataset

You must have an account for this publisher on data.gov.uk to make any changes to a dataset.

Sign in