Growing pains City at crossroads as population hits 500k

THE population of Bristol has risen to more than half a million for the first time in the city's history. Bristol City Council has published new figures showing that the population of the city is forecast to go up by ten per cent between 2022 and 2032.

- Tristan CORK

As of the mid point of 2025 - this week - that figure has now exceeded 500,000 for the first time.

The increasing population of the city - which will reach a predicted 526,000 by 2032 - is putting increased pressure on the city's housing crisis, healthcare, transport and road infrastructure, with issues around housing and healthcare in particular already the subject of a prominent debate. Back in 2022, Bristol's population was recorded at 478,000 and has been rising ever since, passing the half a million mark at the mid point of 2025.

The updated figures have been revealed from the Office for National Statistics and paint a particular picture for Bristol as a city in the second half of the 2020s and into the 2030s. Bristol will be a place with a bigger than average population of people in their 20s and 30s but, by contrast, a city where fewer adults are having children compared to the national average. The number of children and young people living in the city is expected to decline between now and 2032.

What are the reasons for the population increase?

The population of Bristol is predicted to increase by around 50,000 in the ten years between 2022 and 2032. That 50,000 over ten years is around 5,000 a year, and represents a ten per cent increase in the population of the city as a whole.

Of that 50,000 increase, around 21,465 will be a natural increase with the number of babies being born predicted to be 55,887 in those ten years, while 34,423 people living in Bristol have or will die between 2022 and 2032. That's a net increase of 21,465, or 4.5 per cent, which is higher than the national England average of just 0.2 per cent.

The number of people moving into Bristol from other parts of the country - most commonly the surrounding areas of the West of England and also from London - is predicted to be 398,695 over the ten years between 2022 and 2032. That's just under 40,000 every year.