A new briefing has been published analysing the latest 2024 mid-year population estimates.
The population of East Sussex was estimated to be 560,882 in mid-2024.
Key points:
- The number of people has increased by 0.8% (4,244 people) since mid-2023 (England and South East both up 1.2%) and by 4.3% since 2014.
- The birth rate has been declining steadily in East Sussex over the last decade, and there were 15% fewer births in 2024 than 2014. However, in the year to June 2024 there were 34 more births than in 2023. East Sussex has seen a negative natural change every year for at least 50 years and this pattern continues, with 2,552 more deaths than births in 2024.
- Internal net migration makes the largest contribution to population change in East Sussex. 3,988 more people moved into the county from within the UK than moved out of the county in 2024. This slightly lower than the average for the previous 10 years (2014-2023) of 4,510 net internal migration arrivals per year.
- International net migration into East Sussex was 30.6% lower in 2024 than in 2023, at 2,851, compared to 4,107 the previous year. It remains much higher than the average for the period 2013-2022, when there was average net international migration of 485 per year.
- Rother has the second highest proportion of people aged 65 and over (32.5%), and aged 85 and over (4.9%) of all local authority districts/UAs in England, behind North Norfolk (35.0% and 5.0%). At 53.7 years, Rother has the third highest median age of all districts/UAs, behind North Norfolk (56.0 years) and East Lindsey (54.1 years). It has the highest median age out of all Sussex districts/UAs.