New ONS data reveals Tower Hamlets to be the youngest local authority in the UK.

Newly released census data shows Tower Hamlets to have the lowest median age at 30 years. This may partly be accounted for by a large university student population, the report finds. The median age, which finds the middle point where half of the population are younger and half are older, was 30.

On top of this, Tower Hamlets was found to be the local authority with the highest population increase in London at 22.1%. This is higher  than the overall increase for England at 6.6%. In 2021, Tower Hamlets ranked 40th for total population out of 309 local authority areas in England, moving up 20 places in a decade.

According to the Council: ‘The borough’s population growth has largely been driven by international migration’. Over the past ten years international migration increased the Tower Hamlets population by around 62,300 residents, the Council says.

Since 1986, the population has more than doubled – making Tower Hamlets the fastest growing local authority in the UK. The result of this is that Tower Hamlets also has the densest population of any borough in London with 15,695 residents per km2 – compared to the national average of 424 per km2.