A man born in the North East of England can expect to die three years earlier than one born in London, new figures reveal, as the North–South life expectancy divide widened over the past decade.
The study, published as Prime Minister Andy Burnham opened his new government headquarters in Manchester, shows that while life expectancy reached the highest levels ever recorded in 2025, the gains have been anything but equal.
“Life expectancy gap between North and South England widened to three years as healthy years fall across UK.”
Life expectancy in London and the South East, the South West and the East of England continued to rise. But across the North — the North East, North West, Yorkshire and The Humber, East and West Midlands — there was little or no improvement in the decade before 2023-25. For almost half of England’s population, the national life expectancy figure masks stagnation.
The King’s Fund health charity concluded that the Government’s aim to increase healthy life expectancy for everyone in England and halve the gap between the richest and poorest regions looks “unrealistic”. Achieving those aims, it said, would require improvements in population health on a scale not seen in recent decades.
Healthy life expectancy — the number of years people can expect to live in good health — is falling everywhere, having dropped by about 2.5 years in the decade to 2022-24.
Burnham, who has pledged to rebalance the country, opened No 10 North at Heron House in Manchester on Friday, describing it as “the best day of my life”. He told staff and ministers that the new base was about “putting power in every postcode”.
“The country has always been a little like that, hasn’t it?” he said of the need to leave the North West to get on in life. “That opportunity has not been evenly spread around the country, and not all places have felt that they are part of the national story, and that is what this Government is going to work every single day to change.”
The Daily Mail noted that the Prime Minister must do plenty more if he is to rebalance the country, with the analysis showing the gap has widened on his watch. The study serves as an early test of whether the new Manchester headquarters can help turn the tide.
