Indicator
Trends in drug-related deaths
Published
5 June 2025
Last updated
23 October 2026
Time to read
About 2 mins
About 2 mins
Key Points
- In 2024, drug-related death rates across all UK countries were higher than in 2000.
- Scotland has the highest drug-related death rate, at 23.9 deaths per 100,000 (in 2025). This is over twice as high as the death rate in England (9.1 deaths per 100,000 in 2024).
- In the last decade, all countries have seen a general upward trend in drug-related death rates, except Scotland where rates peaked in 2020 and have fluctuated below this level since then.
Drug use is a major contributor to premature death and increases the risk of long-term health conditions including infectious diseases. It can also impact our access to other building blocks of health; for example, drug misuse can damage our relationships and affect our ability to work.
This chart shows trends in the drug-related death rate (age-standardised) for countries in the UK between 2000 and 2025.
- In 2000, drug-related death rates were very similar for England and Wales (around 5.4 deaths per 100,000). The drug-related death rate in Scotland was slightly higher at 9.3 deaths per 100,000.
- Since then, drug-related death rates have increased steadily in England and Wales, up to 9.1 deaths per 100,000 in England and 14 per 100,000 in Wales in 2024.
- The drug-related death rate in Scotland has grown faster, to a high of 27.9 deaths per 100,000 in 2020 – over three times as high as the rate in England at the time. Rates have fluctuated below this level since then, at 23.9 drug-related deaths per 100,000 in 2025. The increase was driven by an increase in deaths in the most deprived areas in Scotland.
- Data for Northern Ireland are only available from 2008 onwards. However, they show a similar upward trend since then to a drug-related death rate of 13.5 per 100,000 in 2024.
- Drug-related deaths refers to all drug poisoning deaths.
- Age-standardised deaths rates refer to a weighted average of the age-specific death rates per 100,000 people.
Source: Office for National Statistics, Deaths related to drug poisoning, England and Wales, 2024; National Records of Scotland, Drug-related Deaths in Scotland, 2025; Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Drug Related and Drug Misuse Deaths, 2024.
