You asked
I'm trying to find out the total number of deaths for the year 2020 in the United Kingdom (not just England and Wales).
We said
Thank you for your request.
We are responsible for the production of mortality data for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.
However, we do publish headline UK figures within our Vital statistics in the UK: births, deaths and marriages. The latest data that we hold for annual totals in the UK as a whole is for 2019.
Registered deaths in England and Wales in 2020 will be finalised within our Deaths Registered Series in July 2021. This is to allow late registrations such as Coroner's Inquests to be included, which currently have a median delay of 146 days for registration for deaths due to external causes. Please see our Impact of Registration delays release for further information.
Whilst mortality data has not yet been finalised for 2020, all three Statistical authorities have published blogs with year-end figures from 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020.
England and Wales: https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2021/01/12/counting-deaths-involving-coronavirus-a-year-in-review/. Please scroll down to the 'Total deaths' heading in this blog to view the provisional total number of deaths in England and Wales in 2020.
Scotland: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/covid19/annual-deaths-excess-deaths-1855-2020.xlsx
Northern Ireland: https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/monthly-deaths