Devon population gets bigger - and younger

If you're 47.8 years-old, you're average!

People moving into Devon from other parts of the UK are driving a rise in the county’s population.

The number of people living in the Devon County Council area, which excludes Torbay and Plymouth, has risen by just under 9,000 to a total of 842,313. 

Exeter has the county’s youngest population and Torbay the oldest.

The figures have just been released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and provide a snapshot of the county in 2024.

Population figures rose by just over one per cent, slightly less than the average for the whole of England and Wales. But the average age of people in Devon dropped slightly between 2023 and 2024, from 47.8 years old to 47.6.

The number of people in the county aged 65 and over is much higher than the average for England and Wales – 26.3 per cent compared with 18.9 per cent.

Between 2023 and 2024 there were more deaths (9,498) than births (6,050) in the county, but 44,500 people moved here from other parts of the UK.

A total of 8,762 people moved to Devon from overseas, while 4,795 Devonians moved abroad, giving a net increase of 3,967. Those figures exclude Plymouth and Torbay.

Exeter is growing faster than the national average. The city’s population is put at 138,399, up two per cent in the past year against a national average of 1.2 per cent.

The biggest driver of the population rise is the number of people coming to the city from overseas – just over 2,000 between 2023 and 2024. 

The median age of Exeter people is 35, down by two and a half months from the previous year. The ONS pinpoints Exeter as having a particularly large and highly mobile student population.

The number of people living in Torbay barely changed between 2023 and 2024, rising by just 382 to 140,126. The average age of people in Torbay is 49 years and four months.

Older people make up a larger-than-average proportion of the population, with 27.3 per cent of people aged 65 or over compared to a national average of 18.9 per cent.

There were nearly 1,000 more deaths than births in Torbay across the year. Just over 500 more people moved into the bay from elsewhere in the UK than moved out.

Nearly 780 more people moved in from other countries than moved out.

Plymouth’s population rose by around 1,500 people to just over 272,000, giving it slower population growth than the national average. Again, people moving in from elsewhere in the UK was the main reason for the rise.

The average age of Plymothians remained unchanged at 39.3 years.

Just under 19 per cent of people in Plymouth are 65 and over, slightly higher than the national average.

More people left Plymouth for other parts of the UK than came in, but more people came in from other countries than emigrated.