North West · Metropolitan district

Manchester

2028/29 view

Manchester City Council · ONS E08000003

Financial position as at 2028/29

Official website View sources

PEOPLE AND PLACE

Population and community profile

Latest official statistics

Population 589,670 2024

North West region 7,737,414

Five-year population change

+43,723 residents ↑ 8.0%

Manchester +8.0%

North West +5.1%

England +4.3%

Growth context

Manchester's population grew over five years. Its change was 2.9 percentage points above the North West and 3.8 percentage points above England.

2019–2024 ONS mid-year estimates

Working-age population 420,296 71.5% of residents · 2025 North West: 62.6%

Employment rate 74.9% Apr 2025–Mar 2026 North West: 73.8%

Workless households 13.1% 25,200.0% of residents · Jan–Dec 2025 North West: 16.3% · Great Britain: 14.4%

Population estimates and labour-market measures from ONS/Nomis.Official profile

ETHNIC COMPOSITION

How residents identified their ethnic group

Broad categories reported by usual residents.

Census 2,021

White56.8%

Asian20.9%

Black11.9%

Mixed or multiple5.3%

Other ethnic group5.1%

Self-identified Census categories. Percentages may differ slightly from detailed tables because broad categories are rounded.Official ONS profile

AGE PROFILE

Population by broad age group

Latest mid-year population estimate.

2025 ONS estimate

Aged 0–15111,606 residents 19.0%

Aged 16–64420,296 residents 71.5%

Aged 65+56,354 residents 9.6%

Counts and proportions use the same 2025 ONS population estimate shown above.Official profile

ECONOMIC WELLBEING

Work and economic participation

Latest published labour-market measures for residents and households.

ONS / Nomis

Economic inactivity 22.0% 86,700 people Apr 2025–Mar 2026 North West: 22.7% · Great Britain: 20.9%

Workless households 13.1% 25,200 households Jan–Dec 2025 North West: 16.3% · Great Britain: 14.4%

Claimant count 6.0% 25,260 claimants July 2026 North West: 4.1% · Great Britain: 3.9%

Jobs per working-age resident 1.21 504,000 jobs 2024 North West: 0.82 · Great Britain: 0.85

Survey estimates can move between releases. Claimant count is administrative data; economic inactivity and workless households are survey estimates.Official labour-market profile

PER RESIDENT

Putting council figures into context

Calculated from the latest population estimate and CouncilMetrics data.

2026/27 expenditure per resident £441 2026/27 Q1 · year to date

Tracked contract value per resident £1,182 67 published contracts

Residents per councillor 6,142 96 elected members

AIR QUALITY

How clean is the air?

Long-term particulate pollution across the council area, alongside measurements from local UK-AIR monitoring stations.

Defra 2,024

POPULATION-WEIGHTED ANNUAL MEAN

Fine particulate matter

7.7 µg/m³

PM2.5 · 2,024

Human-related sources 7.2 µg/m³

Other sources 0.5 µg/m³

Modelled population-weighted annual concentration across the local authority area. This is not a live sensor reading.

LONG-TERM TREND

PM2.5 over time

36.4%

12.1 7.5

2011 2024

Since 2011 ↓ 36.4%

5 years ↓ 20.6%

10 years ↓ 30.1%

CURRENT MONITORING

Latest station measurement

UK-AIR

PM2.5 17.5 µg/m³

Provisional

Last 24 hours 7.8 – 18.6 µg/m³

Manchester Piccadilly Automatic Urban and Rural Monitoring Network (AURN); Non-Automatic Hydrocarbon Network · Urban Background Latest measurement: 2026-09-23 01:00:00+01

This is a measurement from an individual monitoring station and should not be interpreted as the current concentration across the whole council area.

HEALTH IMPACT

Particulate air pollution

5.8% of mortality attributable to particulate air pollution

2024 Not compared

This OHID measure estimates the mortality burden associated with particulate air pollution. It is a health-impact measure, not a pollution concentration.

Annual PM2.5 is Defra Pollution Climate Mapping data. Monitoring readings are station-specific UK-AIR measurements and may be provisional. Defra source