UK Cremation Statistics 2025 (Provisional): Rates, Numbers, Costs and Trends

In 2025, 527,511 cremations took place in the British Islands, 80.46% of the 655,588 deaths recorded, according to provisional figures from the Cremation Society of Great Britain. This page sets out cremation figures for the UK and the British Islands year by year from 1885 to 2025 and nation by nation, with crematoria, direct cremation, costs, what happens to ashes and how the UK compares with other countries. Every figure is linked to the source it was taken from, and where a figure reached us second hand (the 2022 funeral costs are figures from SunLife, an insurer's survey, taken from a Competition and Markets Authority review) the page says so.

Last updated: 6 October 2026. Newest full-year data: 2025 (provisional). Next update: when the Cremation Society publishes its 2026 figures, which on its yearly cycle we expect during 2027, or sooner if the provisional 2025 figures are revised.

Headline figures for 2025. Source: Cremation Society of Great Britain, Progress of Cremation in the British Islands.

Jump to: Year by year By nation Cremation v burial History Crematoria Direct cremation Costs Ashes Other countries Cite this page Questions Sources and method

The gold area follows the cremation rate the source prints for the British Islands in each year, against a full height that stands for all deaths. The white lines mark 1968 and 2025. The step down in 1995 is mostly where Northern Ireland joins the table, and the marks in the year tables below apply to these rates too. Source: Cremation Society of Great Britain, Progress of Cremation in the British Islands.

A note on geography: the Cremation Society counts the British Islands, meaning the United Kingdom plus the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. In 2025 the islands accounted for 1,926 of the cremations (1,188 in the Channel Islands plus 738 in the Isle of Man, our calculation from the Cremation Society, Table of Cremations 2025).

Key facts

• In 2025, 527,511 cremations took place in the British Islands (the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands), 80.46% of all deaths, according to provisional figures from the Cremation Society of Great Britain.
• The highest cremation rate printed for the British Islands is 80.64% in 2023 (amended; as printed, see note), and the highest number of cremations in one year is 542,789 in 2020 (amended), according to the Cremation Society table, which starts in 1885. With the National Records of Scotland deaths figure, our sum puts the provisional 2025 rate for the British Islands at 80.80%, above the printed 2023 figure (see the cautions on the 2025 figures).
• In 2025 the provisional cremation rate was 83.23% in England, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands taken together, 71.15% in Scotland and 25.09% in Northern Ireland, according to the Cremation Society.
• The first cremation in the Cremation Society's record was carried out at Woking on 26 March 1885, and 3 cremations were carried out that year, according to the Cremation Society.
• Cremation first accounted for more than half of deaths in the British Islands in 1968, when the rate reached 51.23%, up from 48.89% in 1967 (both as printed), according to the Cremation Society; the series has no Northern Ireland figures before 1995.
• There were 335 crematoria in operation in the British Islands in 2025, which is 332 in the UK and 3 on the islands (our count from the Cremation Society, Table of Cremations 2025), compared with 242 in 2000 and 148 in 1960 in the column the Society heads United Kingdom, according to the Cremation Society.
• In SunLife's 2025 survey of people who had organised a funeral in the UK in the previous four years, 21% described it as a direct cremation, up from 3% in the 2019 survey, according to the SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, a yearly survey carried out for an insurer.
• In the UK a simple attended cremation cost an average of £3,518 in 2025 and a direct cremation £1,628, against £4,758 for a simple attended burial, according to the SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, an insurer's survey.
• In 2024, 84.5% of cremated remains were removed from the crematorium and 10.6% were strewn in crematorium grounds, according to the Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities, which does not state the area its figures cover.
• Japan has the highest cremation rate in the Cremation Society's international table, at 99.98% of deaths in 2024 as printed (its page for Japan carries a mark it does not explain; Cremation Society, International Statistics 2024), and the United States rate was 62.8% in 2025, according to the Cremation Association of North America.

UK and British Islands cremations year by year, 1885 to 2025

The latest ten years, 2016 to 2025

Key to the marks. (provisional) = the cell carries the mark that the source explains as "Provisional figure". (incl. islands) = the source marks the deaths cell "#", which it explains as "Number of deaths includes Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey from 2018 onwards". (amended) = the Society's Table of Cremations for the following year marks that year's total "#" and says "Amended figures provided for" that year: this is so for 2020 (Table of Cremations 2021), 2021 (Table of Cremations 2022), 2022 (Table of Cremations 2023), 2023 (Table of Cremations 2024) and 2024 (Table of Cremations 2025); a nation cell is marked where a crematorium in that nation carries "#" in the following year's table, and a rate built on an amended figure is marked the same way. The British Islands deaths figures for 2021 and 2023 were also revised between editions and carry no mark of their own: 2021 from a provisional 669,327 (International Statistics 2021) to 669,764, and 2023 from 663,107 (International Statistics 2023) to 664,397 as now printed. (see note) = the row fails one of our two arithmetic tests; open the notes under the table. The rows marked (see note) here are among those explained in the notes under the full table for 2000 to 2025, which opens below.

Reading the trend

All figures in this section are for the British Islands and come from the Cremation Society's Progress of Cremation table.

Cremation was rare in the British Islands for its first half century: the rate was 0.15% in 1910 and 0.87% in 1930. The steep climb in the British Islands rate came after the Second World War, from 7.80% in 1945 to 34.70% in 1960 and 65.26% in 1980. Growth in the British Islands rate since then has been slower: 71.51% in 2000 and 80.46% (provisional) in 2025 (Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation).

Over the last four years the British Islands rate has moved within a narrow band: 79.83% in 2022 (amended), 80.64% in 2023 (amended; as printed, see note), 80.20% in 2024 (amended) and 80.46% (provisional) in 2025. The largest number of cremations in one year in the British Islands table is 542,789 in 2020 (amended), and 2025 saw 5,082 more cremations than 2024 (the provisional 527,511 for 2025 minus the amended 522,429 for 2024, our calculation from the Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation).

Two breaks in the series are mainly changes of coverage. The British Islands rate falls from 70.41% in 1994 to 68.59% in 1995 mostly, though not wholly, because Northern Ireland joins the table that year (its first row shows 1,934 cremations out of 15,455 deaths, a rate of 12.51%): without Northern Ireland the 1995 rate would be 69.95% (408,876 + 34,764 = 443,640 cremations, divided by 573,283 + 60,897 = 634,180 deaths, our calculation). From 2018 the deaths total also includes the Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey (Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation).

Chart: cremation rate by decade, 1900 to 2025

Share of deaths in the British Islands followed by cremation, with each bar drawn to scale against a full width that stands for all deaths. The marks (see note), (amended) and (provisional) mean what they mean in the year tables above. Source: Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation.

Cremation rates by nation

The Cremation Society publishes rates for three groups: England, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands together; Scotland; and Northern Ireland. It does not publish separate rates for England and for Wales.

The marks (provisional), (amended) and (see note) mean what they mean in the year table above.

The England figure is our calculation: 527,473 - 45,865 - 26,468 - 4,455 - 1,188 - 738 = 448,759. The England crematoria figure is our count: 335 - 35 - 18 - 2 - 2 - 1 = 277. Cremations are counted where the crematorium is, not where the person lived. This spreadsheet has a key for provisional figures but marks no crematorium with it; the Society's Progress of Cremation table marks its 2025 totals as provisional.

Chart: cremation rate by nation, 2025

Provisional 2025 rates for the nations of the British Islands, with each ring drawn to scale against a full circle that stands for all deaths. Source: Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation. See the note on Scotland below.

The 2025 nation rates are provisional, and the one for Scotland rests on a deaths figure that differs from the official count: with the National Records of Scotland figure the Scottish rate is 74.30%, not the provisional 71.15% (our calculation from Cremation Society and NRS figures). None of the sources used here publishes a UK-only rate or separate rates for England and for Wales; our workings on all three points are under Three cautions about the 2025 nation figures in Sources and method.

Why the nations differ

None of the sources used for this page gives a measured reason for the gap, so we do not offer one. What the tables do show is a large difference in provision: in 2025 Northern Ireland had 2 working crematoria, against 35 in Scotland and 18 in Wales (Cremation Society, Table of Cremations 2025). Belfast, opened in 1961, was Northern Ireland's only crematorium until Antrim and Newtownabbey opened in 2023 (Cremation Society, List of Crematoria by Year of Opening). Scotland passed the halfway mark ten years after England and Wales: the Scottish rate first exceeded 50% in 1977 (50.71%), while the England and Wales group did so in 1967 (50.1%), both as printed, according to the Cremation Society.

Cremation v burial in the UK

On the Cremation Society's provisional figures, 80.46% of deaths in the British Islands in 2025 were followed by cremation, which leaves 19.54% that were not (100 - 80.46, our calculation from the Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation). That remainder is usually read as burial, but none of the sources used here publishes a count of burials, so it also includes any death that led to neither a burial nor a cremation in the British Islands.

One dot for each whole percentage point of deaths in the British Islands in 2025, so the part of a point is not drawn. The remainder is our calculation and is not a count of burials. Source: Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation.

A second measure comes from asking the people who arrange funerals. The SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026 is an insurer's survey: in June to July 2025 it interviewed 1,500 people who had organised a funeral in the UK in the previous four years, 36% of them within the past 12 months. Of those UK organisers, 53% described the funeral as an attended cremation, 21% as a direct cremation and 26% as a burial, so these shares describe funerals held over about four years up to mid 2025 and not funerals held in 2025 alone. SunLife therefore weights its 2025 UK costs at 74% cremation to 26% burial (SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026). The two measures differ because they count different things: the Cremation Society counts every cremation in every crematorium against all deaths, while SunLife reports what a sample of organisers say they arranged and leaves out public health funerals.

The marks (see note), (amended) and (provisional) mean what they mean in the year tables above.

History: when cremation became legal and common in the UK

• 13 January 1874. A declaration in favour of cremation is signed at Sir Henry Thompson's house in Wimpole Street, and the Cremation Society of England comes into being (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation).
• 17 March 1879. The Society tests its newly built furnace on the body of a horse, but the Home Secretary refuses to allow cremations to continue until Parliament has authorised them (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation).
• 8 and 9 October 1882. Captain Hanham of Dorset cremates his wife and his mother in a crematorium built on his own estate, and no action is taken against him (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation).
• February 1884. At the trial of Dr William Price in Cardiff, Mr Justice Stephen rules that cremation is legal provided no nuisance is caused to others (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation).
• 26 March 1885. The first official cremation takes place at Woking; the deceased is Mrs Jeannette C. Pickersgill, and 3 cremations are carried out that year (Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation; Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation).
• 1892. A company is formed in Manchester to build the first crematorium in the provinces (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation).
• 1901. Hull opens the first municipal crematorium in Great Britain (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation).
• 22 July 1902. The Cremation Act 1902 is passed, "for the regulation of the burning of Human Remains, and to enable Burial Authorities to establish Crematoria"; the first regulations under it follow in March 1903, and Golders Green Crematorium opens in November 1902 (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation).
• 1911. Cremations in the British Islands pass 1,000 in a year for the first time, with 1,023 recorded (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation; Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation).
• 1947. The cremation rate in the British Islands passes one in ten for the first time, at 10.48%, up from 9.01% in 1946 (Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation).
• 26 June 1952. The Cremation Act 1952 receives Royal Assent and extends the power to provide crematoria to all local authorities (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation).
• 1960 and 1961. Thirty new crematoria open in two years; the number in operation, in the column the Society heads United Kingdom, rises from 131 in 1959 to 161 in 1961 (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation; Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation).
• July 1963. The Pope lifts the ban on Roman Catholics seeking cremation, and in 1966 priests are allowed to conduct services in crematoria (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation).
• 1 January 1965. New regulations leave the decision whether to cremate entirely to the next of kin (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation).
• 1968. Cremation becomes the majority choice: 51.23% of deaths in the British Islands, up from 48.89% in 1967 (both as printed, in a series with no Northern Ireland figures before 1995) (Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation).
• 1 January 2009. The Cremation (England and Wales) Regulations 2008 come into force.
• 4 April 2019. In Scotland the 1902 Act is repealed by the Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016 (legislation.gov.uk, Cremation Act 1902).
• 18 December 2020. The Competition and Markets Authority publishes the final report of its funerals market investigation, followed by the Funerals Market Investigation Order 2021, which is intended to make price and service information clearer for people choosing a funeral director or crematorium (CMA, Funerals sector annual review of market outcomes).

Crematoria in the UK

There were 335 crematoria in operation in the British Islands in 2025, against 336 in 2024, according to the Cremation Society. The column is headed "United Kingdom", but the figure matches the 335 crematoria with cremations in 2025 in the Society's own table, which includes 1 in the Isle of Man and 2 in the Channel Islands (our count from the Cremation Society, Table of Cremations 2025). The count, in the column the Society heads United Kingdom, has grown in two waves: from 58 in 1950 to 206 in 1970, and from 242 in 2000 to 335 in 2025 (Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation).

The number of crematoria in the column the Society heads United Kingdom, with each column drawn to scale. Source: Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation.

Public and private ownership

The most recent breakdown we found is in the final report of the Competition and Markets Authority's funerals market investigation, which makes three separate statements about the UK (CMA, Funerals Market Investigation final report):

• As at 1 September 2019 there were 303 crematoria in the UK, operated by 184 separate entities.
• Separately, and without giving a date, the report says that 162 local authorities operate 187 crematoria, which it puts at 61% of all crematoria in the UK.
• In a footnote it adds that as of 12 October 2020 there were 307 crematoria in the UK, operated by 187 separate entities.

The largest crematorium operator in the UK, Dignity, owned 46 crematoria and carried out 75,500 cremations in 2022 (CMA, Funerals sector annual review of market outcomes). We found no published total for public and private ownership in the UK after 2019: the Society's List of Crematoria by Year of Opening marks each crematorium as public or private but gives no totals, and we have not counted them.

Newest crematoria

Two crematoria opened in 2025, both in October and both privately owned: Tamar Valley in Devon and East Lothian in Scotland (Cremation Society, Table of Cremations 2025; Cremation Society, List of Crematoria by Year of Opening). The Society's list already shows four openings for 2026: Bierley Woods (replacing Scholemoor in Bradford), Sewardstone Park, Roseland Park and LakeView Bereavement Centre (Cremation Society, List of Crematoria by Year of Opening).

Busiest crematoria in 2025

(amended) = the source marks the 2024 figure for Birkenhead with "#", its sign for an amended 2024 figure. No other figure in this table carries that mark.

Andover recorded 20,079 cremations in 2025, more than five times the figure for any other crematorium; the table does not say why (Cremation Society, Table of Cremations 2025). Over its whole life, Golders Green in London has carried out more cremations than any other crematorium in the table: 355,395 since it opened (Cremation Society, Table of Cremations 2025).

How crematoria operate

Service slots have lengthened: in 2025, 50.47% of crematoria in the British Islands booked services in 60 minute slots, compared with 6.80% in 2007, while 30 minute slots fell from 42.00% to 6.38%, according to the Cremation Society, Survey of Crematoria 2025, which was answered by 329 of the 334 crematoria surveyed.

Direct cremation

A direct cremation is a cremation with no service and no mourners present. The Cremation Society's tables do not separate direct cremations from attended ones, so the figures below come from a survey and from the competition regulator.

In the same SunLife survey (UK, 2025), 21% of organisers described the funeral as a direct cremation, up from 3% in the 2019 survey and 14% in the 2020 survey. Awareness in the UK has risen with it, from 52% of people in the 2019 survey to 85% in the 2025 survey. In the 2025 UK survey, 51% of those who chose a direct cremation said the person who died had asked for it, and 86% still held a memorial, wake or celebration of life, which took the average amount spent to £2,949 (all three sentences: SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, an insurer's survey).

Each ring is drawn to scale against a full circle. Each year is the year of the survey, not the year of the funerals. Source: SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, an insurer's survey.

The Competition and Markets Authority collects figures from crematorium operators themselves. In the year from 1 September 2023 to 31 August 2024, 81% of the cremations reported to it by UK operators were attended services, down from 84% the year before; the rest were unattended, which is the regulator's term for direct cremation. In that year UK operators reported 71,230 unattended cremations out of 383,828, though 15% of the operators required to report did not do so (both sentences: CMA, Funerals sector annual review of market outcomes).

Chart: types of funeral reported in SunLife surveys, 2019 to 2025

Share of funerals by type as described by the people who organised them. Each year is the year of the survey, not the year of the funerals: the 2025 survey interviewed people who had organised a funeral in the previous four years. Public health funerals are left out of these UK figures, which the source prints as whole numbers that do not always add up to the full total, and in the 2025 survey burials include the 2% of UK funerals described as direct burials. Source: SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, an insurer's survey.

What a cremation costs

The cost figures here come from the SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, which is produced for an insurer and is based on prices given by 100 funeral directors across the UK in May to July 2025. They are funeral director prices for a set list of services, including the crematorium or cemetery fee. SunLife asks that its figures are credited to "SunLife's Cost of Dying Report" with a link to sunlife.co.uk/funeral-costs.

"Not measured" means SunLife did not publish that figure for that year; the simple attended funeral is new in its 2026 report. Direct burial is left out of this table because SunLife's figure for it excludes third-party fees.

Average UK prices in 2025, with each bar drawn to scale against the highest. Source: SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, an insurer's survey.

Between 2024 and 2025 a traditional attended cremation in the UK rose by 5.5%, a traditional attended burial by 4.7% and a direct cremation by 1.9%. Averaged across burials and cremations in the UK, SunLife puts a simple attended funeral at £3,828 and a traditional attended funeral at £4,510 in 2025, and says the traditional figure has risen 146% since its first report in 2004. Where you live matters: in 2025 a simple attended funeral averaged £3,105 in Northern Ireland and £4,897 in London (all three sentences: SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, an insurer's survey).

A note on names, because the same series appears under two of them. The CMA calls the weighted UK average the "cost of a simple attended funeral" and gives £3,953 for 2022 and £4,285 for 2024 (CMA, Funerals sector annual review of market outcomes). The 2026 report from SunLife, an insurer's survey, gives the same UK figure of £4,285 for 2024 under the name "traditional attended funeral", and uses "simple attended funeral" for a new and lower measure that it says is "an additional type of funeral" (SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026). The 2022 figures in the table above are therefore the series SunLife now calls traditional attended.

The crematorium's own fee

The fee charged by the crematorium is one part of those totals. The average basic cremation fee across the British Islands was £1,059.49 in January 2026, up from £1,012.19 in January 2025 (a figure the source marks as amended), according to the Cremation Society, Table of Cremations 2025. On 1 January 2026 the highest basic fee was £1,550.00 at Harwood Park in Hertfordshire and the lowest was £440.00 at Belfast (Cremation Society, Cremation Fee League Table 2026). Measured differently, UK crematorium operators told the Competition and Markets Authority that their average revenue per cremation was £862 in the year from 1 September 2023 to 31 August 2024, up from £822 the year before (CMA, Funerals sector annual review of market outcomes). That figure covers reduced fee and unattended cremations as well as standard ones, so it is not directly comparable with the basic fee.

What happens to the ashes

Two sources measure this, at two different moments.

The first is what happens at the crematorium: in 2024, 84.5% of cremated remains left the crematorium, 10.6% were strewn in its grounds and 3.3% were interred there, though the FBCA does not state the area its figures cover (FBCA, Summary of cremation statistics). The second is what families go on to do: in the same SunLife survey (UK, 2025), 51% of those who organised a cremation scattered the ashes, 30% kept them and 18% buried them. Among those in the UK survey who scattered, 31% chose a garden of remembrance, 12% a woodland, 12% a beach and 2% a sports venue (both sentences: SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, an insurer's survey).

Shares of UK organisers of a cremation, as printed by the source, with the bar drawn to scale. Source: SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, an insurer's survey.

How the UK compares with other countries

Key to the marks. (estimate) and (provisional) = marked so on the Society's own page for that country. (amended) and (incl. islands) = as in the year table above. (see note) = open the notes under the table.

For the United States the trade bodies publish newer figures than the international table. The Cremation Association of North America puts the US cremation rate at 62.8% in 2025 and the Canadian rate at 77.4%, and projects 69.1% for the US by 2030 (CANA, Industry Statistical Information). CANA says that bold type marks provisional or projected figures; in its tables for the US and for Canada the 2025 rates are not in bold (CANA, Industry Statistical Information). The National Funeral Directors Association projected a 2025 US cremation rate of 63.4% and a burial rate of 31.6% (NFDA Media Center). These are comparisons only: each country counts deaths and cremations in its own way.

Cite this page

Frequently asked questions

What is the cremation rate in the UK?

The cremation rate was 80.46% in 2025: 527,511 cremations out of 655,588 deaths in the British Islands (the UK, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands), according to provisional figures in the Cremation Society's Progress of Cremation table.

How many cremations are there in the UK each year?

There were 527,511 cremations in the British Islands in 2025 (provisional) and 522,429 in 2024 (amended), according to the Cremation Society.

How many cremations take place each day in the UK?

About 1,445 a day on average across the British Islands in 2025: 527,511 cremations divided by 365 days (our calculation from the provisional figure in the Cremation Society's table).

What percentage of UK funerals are cremations and what percentage are burials?

In 2025, 80.46% of deaths in the British Islands were followed by cremation on the provisional figures of the Cremation Society, and in SunLife's 2025 survey of people who had organised a funeral in the UK in the previous four years, 74% of the funerals were cremations and 26% were burials (SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, an insurer's survey).

When did cremations start in the UK?

The first cremation in the Cremation Society's record was carried out at Woking on 26 March 1885, and 3 cremations took place that year (Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation); two private cremations had been carried out on an estate in Dorset on 8 and 9 October 1882 (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation).

When did cremation become legal in the UK?

Cremation was ruled legal in February 1884, when Mr Justice Stephen held that it was lawful provided no nuisance was caused (Cremation Society, History of Modern Cremation), and it was first regulated by Parliament in the Cremation Act 1902, dated 22 July 1902.

When did cremation become popular in the UK?

Cremation grew fastest after the Second World War: in the British Islands the rate was 7.80% in 1945, 34.70% in 1960 and 65.26% in 1980, according to the Cremation Society, whose series has no Northern Ireland figures before 1995.

When did cremation overtake burial in the UK?

In 1968, when 51.23% of deaths in the British Islands were followed by cremation, up from 48.89% in 1967 (both as printed), according to the Cremation Society, whose series has no Northern Ireland figures before 1995.

How many crematoria are there in the UK?

There were 335 crematoria in operation in the British Islands in 2025 (Cremation Society, Progress of Cremation), of which 1 is in the Isle of Man and 2 are in the Channel Islands, leaving 332 in the United Kingdom (335 - 1 - 2, our calculation from the Cremation Society, Table of Cremations 2025).

Which UK nation has the highest cremation rate?

England and Wales: the provisional 2025 rate was 83.23% for England, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands together, against 71.15% in Scotland and 25.09% in Northern Ireland, according to the Cremation Society.

How much does a cremation cost in the UK?

In the UK in 2025 a direct cremation cost an average of £1,628, a simple attended cremation £3,518 and a traditional attended cremation £4,200, according to the SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, an insurer's survey.

What share of UK funerals are direct cremations?

In SunLife's 2025 survey of people who had organised a funeral in the UK in the previous four years, 21% described it as a direct cremation, up from 3% in the 2019 survey, according to the SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, an insurer's survey.

What do people in the UK do with ashes after a cremation?

In SunLife's 2025 survey of people who had organised a funeral in the UK in the previous four years, 51% of those who organised a cremation scattered the ashes, 30% kept them and 18% buried them, according to the SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026, which is produced for an insurer.

Which is the busiest crematorium in the UK?

Andover in Hampshire recorded the most cremations in 2025, with 20,079, according to the Cremation Society Table of Cremations 2025.

How does the UK cremation rate compare with other countries?

In 2024 the British Islands rate of 80.20% (the amended figure in the Cremation Society's Progress of Cremation table) was below Japan (99.98%, as printed) and above Luxembourg (74.49%), the Netherlands (67.85%), the United States (61.83%) and Greece (5.17%), according to the Cremation Society's International Statistics 2024.

Sources and method

Every figure on this page was taken from the source named beside it, read on 6 October 2026. No source figure has been rounded or estimated, and nothing has been carried over from memory. Where we have worked a figure out ourselves, the sum is shown and it is labelled "our calculation" or "our count".

Credit for each table and chart

• Headline figures table: The Cremation Society of Great Britain, Progress of Cremation in the British Islands.
• Year tables, 2000 to 2025 and 1885 to 1995: The Cremation Society of Great Britain, Progress of Cremation in the British Islands.
• Chart: cremation rate by decade: The Cremation Society of Great Britain, Progress of Cremation in the British Islands.
• Cremation rate by nation table: The Cremation Society of Great Britain, Progress of Cremation in the British Islands.
• Cremations and working crematoria by nation table: The Cremation Society of Great Britain, Table of Cremations Carried Out in the British Islands.
• Chart: cremation rate by nation: The Cremation Society of Great Britain, Progress of Cremation in the British Islands.
• Cremation v burial table: The Cremation Society of Great Britain, Progress of Cremation in the British Islands (the "not cremated" column is our calculation).
• Busiest crematoria table: The Cremation Society of Great Britain, Table of Cremations Carried Out in the British Islands (the ranking is ours).
• International table: The Cremation Society of Great Britain, International Statistics.
• Chart: types of funeral reported in SunLife surveys: SunLife Cost of Dying Report, an insurer's survey.
• Funeral costs table: SunLife Cost of Dying Report, an insurer's survey, with earlier SunLife figures as quoted by the Competition and Markets Authority.
• Disposition of cremated remains table: Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities, Summary of cremation statistics.
• Infographics on the rise of cremation, on cremated and not cremated, and on crematoria in operation: The Cremation Society of Great Britain, Progress of Cremation in the British Islands (the "not cremated" share is our calculation).
• Infographics on direct cremation then and now, on the cost of a funeral by type, and on what families did with the ashes: SunLife Cost of Dying Report, an insurer's survey.

Sources

• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. Progress of Cremation in the British Islands, 1885 to 2025. Data: 1885 to 2025 (2025 provisional). Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. Table of Cremations Carried Out in the British Islands 2025 (Excel file "Cremation Statistics 2025" on the Annual Statistics 2025 page). Data: 2024 and 2025 cremations, fees at January 2025 and January 2026. Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. Cremation Fees As at 1st January 2026 (Cremation Fee League Table 2026, PDF on the Annual Statistics 2026 page). Data: fees at 1 January 2026. Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. Survey of Crematoria in the British Islands 2025 (extracted pages, PDF). Data: 2025, with 2007 comparison. Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. International Statistics 2024. Data: 2024 and 2023. Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. History of Modern Cremation in the United Kingdom from 1874: The First Hundred Years. Data: 1874 to 1974 (written in 1974). Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. List of Crematoria by Year of Opening (the list itself is a file linked from this page). Data: 1885 to 2026. Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. Cremation Statistics (index page and method statement). Data: method. Read 6 October 2026.
• Federation of Burial and Cremation Authorities (FBCA). Summary of cremation statistics. Data: 2020 to 2024. Read 6 October 2026.
• Office for National Statistics (ONS). Deaths registered in England and Wales: 2025 (released 25 September 2026). Data: 2025. Read 6 October 2026.
• National Records of Scotland (NRS). Adoptions, Births, Deaths, Marriages and Civil Partnerships in Scotland, 2025: Registrar General's Annual Statistical Tables of Vital Events (published 25 August 2026). Data: 2025. Read 6 October 2026.
• Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). Registrar General Quarterly Report: Provisional Statistics for Quarter Four 2025 (press notice, 2 April 2026, PDF). Data: 2025 (provisional). Read 6 October 2026.
• Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Funerals Market Investigation: Final report (18 December 2020, PDF). Data: 2018 and 2019. Read 6 October 2026.
• Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Funerals sector: Annual review of market outcomes (7 August 2025, PDF). Data: 2021 to 2024. Read 6 October 2026.
• SunLife (an insurer). SunLife Cost of Dying Report 2026 (PDF; survey by Critical Research for SunLife). Data: 2025 prices and 2025 survey. Read 6 October 2026.
• SunLife (an insurer). Funeral costs: Cost of Dying Report 2026 (web summary of the same report; SunLife asks that its figures are credited with a link to this page). Data: 2025 prices and 2025 survey. Read 6 October 2026.
• legislation.gov.uk. Cremation Act 1902 (1902 c. 8), introductory text. Data: 1902. Read 6 October 2026.
• legislation.gov.uk. The Cremation (England and Wales) Regulations 2008 (S.I. 2008/2841), regulation 1. Data: 2008. Read 6 October 2026.
• Cremation Association of North America (CANA). Industry Statistical Information (2026 Annual Statistics Report summary). Data: 2025. Read 6 October 2026.
• National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA), United States. NFDA Media Center (statistics panel, data last updated September 29, 2025). Data: 2025 (projection). Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. International Statistics 2024: Portugal. Data: 2024 and 2023. Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. International Statistics 2024: Canada. Data: 2024 and 2023. Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. International Statistics 2024, country pages: Andorra, British Islands, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand. Data: 2024 and 2023. Read 6 October 2026.
• Eurostat. Data browser, table demo_gind, "Population change: demographic balance and crude rates at national level"; the figures used are the indicator "Deaths, total" for 2024, read through the Eurostat data service. Data: 2024 (used only to check the international table). Read 6 October 2026.
• World Bank. World Development Indicators: Population, total (SP.POP.TOTL), opened here for Ghana; values read through the World Bank data service. Data: 2024 (used only to check the international table). Read 6 October 2026.
• World Bank. World Development Indicators: Death rate, crude, per 1,000 people (SP.DYN.CDRT.IN), opened here for Ghana; values read through the World Bank data service. Data: 2024 (used only to check the international table). Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. Table of Cremations Carried Out in the British Islands 2021 (Excel file on the Annual Statistics 2021 page). Data: 2020 and 2021 cremations. Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. Table of Cremations Carried Out in the British Islands 2023 (Excel file on the Annual Statistics 2023 page). Data: 2022 and 2023 cremations. Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. Table of Cremations Carried Out in the British Islands 2024 (Excel file on the Annual Statistics 2024 page). Data: 2023 and 2024 cremations. Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. Table of Cremations Carried Out in the British Islands 2022 (Excel file on the Annual Statistics 2022 page). Data: 2021 and 2022 cremations. Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. International Statistics 2021. Data: 2021 and 2020. Read 6 October 2026.
• The Cremation Society of Great Britain. International Statistics 2023. Data: 2023 and 2022. Read 6 October 2026.

The SunLife figures come from a report commissioned by an insurance company. We name it as such each time because it is a survey with a commercial sponsor and not an official statistic. Newspapers, other retailers and Wikipedia are not used as sources anywhere on this page.

If you are choosing an urn after a cremation, our urn size guide explains what capacity you need, and you can browse our adult cremation urns for ashes.