A new population briefing analysing the latest mid-year population estimates for 2025 is now available.
The briefing gives detailed analysis of the ONS mid-year estimates for 2025 which were released in July 2026. This briefing looks at East Sussex and its districts, and examines the county’s age profile, sex, migration and demographic trends.
The population of East Sussex was estimated to be 561,900 in mid-2025.
Key points from the Population briefing:
- Population growth has been slower than England and the South East. The number of people has increased by 0.3% (1,500 more people) since mid-2024 (England up 0.4%, South East up 0.6%). This is slightly lower than in 2024 when numbers rose by 0.7% (3,900).
- Wealden grew fastest in the year to June 2025, with an increase of 0.9% over the year, while Eastbourne (down 0.4%) and Hastings (down 0.2%) both saw declines over the year.
- The population of the county has increased by 3.9% over the 10 years since 2015 (21,200 more people), a much slower rate than the national increase (7.3%) over this period, but at 8.3%, Wealden saw a rise higher than the national average. Hastings has seen population numbers decline by 1.0% in the last ten years.
- East Sussex has a much older population profile than the average for England with 27.1% of the population aged 65 or over, the 7th highest of all Upper Tier authorities in the country, and the county is joint fourth highest for percentage of people aged 85 and over (4.0%). Rother ranks 2nd of all lower tier authorities (behind North Norfolk) for proportion of population aged 65+ (33.2%), and joint first for percentage aged 85+ (5.0%, with North Norfolk and New Forest districts).
- Births are at an all-time low in the county, with just 4,125 live births in the year to mid-2025. This was considerably lower than the number of deaths (7,147) over the year, giving natural change of minus 3,022, the largest loss to natural change since at least 2001.