Standing view · population · Bradford
rising, held with strong confidence, formed on 31 August 2026 from movements in 2025.
Live births in Bradford rose to 6,862 in 2023 and 7,076 in 2024. The general fertility rate rose alongside them, from 59.8 live births per thousand women of childbearing age in 2023 to 61.6 in 2024, and the total fertility rate from 1.81 in 2023 to 1.88 in 2025. The crude birth rate was 12.3 per thousand residents in 2023, against a population of 559,818 in 2024. Four fertility measures moved the same way over two years, so the direction is consistent across every figure published here.
A view is formed only where the evidence names a figure you can check. Each movement listed as a reason had to be large enough to matter and distinctive in at least one way — unusual against this area's own history, unusual against comparable areas, or sustained over several periods. A movement shared with peers counts for less, because it says something about the country rather than about Bradford. Where no figure supports a direction we hold no view rather than a hedged one.
| Measure | Period | Direction |
|---|---|---|
| General fertility rate (GFR) | 2023 | rising |
| Live births | 2023 | rising |
| General fertility rate (GFR) | 2024 | rising |
| Live births | 2024 | rising |
These figures carry no defensible direction of their own: a rising house price is good news to an owner and bad news to someone trying to buy, so we do not score one as an improvement. They are shown because they are part of the picture, and they did not decide the view above.
| Measure | Period | Series |
|---|---|---|
| Crude birth rate | 2023 | — |
| Total fertility rate (TFR) | 2023 | — |
| Population | 2024 | — |
| Total fertility rate (TFR) | 2025 | — |