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Record low summer mortality, says CMI

8 October 2025

The Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) publishes frequent mortality analysis for England and Wales through its mortality monitors. Today鈥檚 updates cover the period to 26 September 2025.

The key points are:    

  • Overall mortality in the third quarter of 2025 was lower than in any other quarter. The previous record low was for the third quarter of 2020, in the aftermath of the first wave of the pandemic.
  • Overall mortality in the first three-quarters of 2025 was lower than in the first three-quarters of any other year, and 1.4% of a full year鈥檚 mortality lower than in the first three-quarters of 2024. 
  • Mortality so far in 2025 is at or near a record low for many age groups, but males aged 45-64 are a notable exception. While their mortality has reduced since the COVID-19 pandemic, it remains higher than in any year from 2011 to 2019. 
  • There were around 3,200 deaths involving COVID-19 registered in the first three-quarters of 2025, fewer than 1% of deaths in 2025 so far. This compares to around 7,600 in the first three-quarters of 2024 and 13,600 in the first three-quarters of 2023.

Cobus Daneel, Chair of the CMI Mortality Projections Committee, said: 鈥淒espite heatwaves, mortality this summer was lower than ever before. This contributed to mortality to date in 2025 also being at a record low. 

鈥淢ost age groups have seen mortality fall over the past year but a notable exception to this is males aged 45-64, whose mortality remains above pre-pandemic levels.鈥�

All mortality monitor updates are publicly available on the .

Further notes

1. The CMI publishes mortality monitors regularly:

  • We publish a summary monitor monthly, every four or five weeks, without a press release. The next is planned for week 44 of 2025 on Wednesday 12 November 2025.
  • Each quarter we publish more detail, accompanied by a press release. The next is planned for the end of 2025, in January 2026.

2. Because the Office for National Statistics published data weekly, we use data for weeks 1-13, 14-26 and 27-39 for the first, second and third quarter respectively. These do not align exactly with calendar months.

3. Death certification reforms were implemented on 9 September 2024:

  • Following the reforms, the five-day period for registering a death starts on the date that the registrar receives a signed medical certificate of cause of death from the medical examiner, or relevant notification from the coroner. 
  • Previously, deaths should legally have been registered within five days of the death occurring or the date on which a body was found (including weekends and bank holidays), unless a coroner was involved. 

4. We note that results by age should currently be treated with particular caution as delays in registrations versus occurrences could have impacted different age ranges to different degrees.