Life expectancy for men has still not returned to pre-pandemic levels – although it has for women.
A baby boy born between 2022 and 2024 can expect to live for an average of 79.1 years, compared to 83 for a baby girl.
Both figures are an improvement on the previous three-year period of 2019-2021, when life expectancy fell to 78.7 years for males and 82.7 years for females due to the impact of the pandemic.
The new estimate for females is similar to the figure for the years immediately before the arrival of Covid-19, when life expectancy was also 83.0 years.
But the new figure for males, 79.1 years, is slightly below the estimate of 79.3 years for boys born in 2017-19.
The data has been published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Life expectancy in the UK improved steadily during the 1980s, 1990 and 2000s, but the rate of improvement slowed in the 2010s and the figures started to plateau in the years immediately before the arrival of Covid-19.
The pandemic saw a jump in the number of deaths in the UK, particularly in 2020 and 2021, which in turn caused a fall in life expectancy estimates.
It is too early to know whether the latest figures represent the start of a new upwards trend, or whether they signal a return to the broadly flat levels seen in the second half of the 2010s.
Among the four nations of the UK, England had the highest life expectancy for babies born in 2022-24, at 83.3 years for females and 79.4 for males.
Scotland had the lowest estimates: 81.1 years for females and 77.1 years for males.
The figures for Wales are 82.2 years for females and 78.3 for males, while for Northern Ireland they are 82.6 years and 78.8 years respectively.
Life expectancy at birth for males was lower in all four nations in 2022-24 than 2017-19.
Greg Ceely, ONS head of population life events, said: ‘UK life expectancy has increased for both men and women in the most recent period.
‘At the national level, this marks a return to pre-pandemic levels for women, although for men life expectancy remained just below 2017 to 2019 levels.
‘However, life expectancy varies depending on where you live.
‘The areas with the highest life expectancy tend to be in the south of England, while life expectancy is lowest in the north of England and Scotland.’
