What is the knife crime rate in England and Wales?

Knife crime figures come from police recorded crime: offences involving a knife or sharp instrument, reported quarterly in the ONS crime release, with figures for each police force. Homicides by method come from the Home Office Homicide Index, published by the ONS each year.

NHS hospital admissions for assault by a sharp object are another official measure. Police forces have moved to a new method of flagging knife offences in recent years, so check the ONS notes on comparability. Scotland publishes its own figures.

Official sources: ONS Crime in England and Wales (latest) · ONS homicide statistics

The latest figure

The newest value is at Office for National Statistics (ONS), using Home Office police recorded crime. More on it: Knife crime offences (England and Wales).

When is the next figure out?

Quarterly in the ONS Crime in England and Wales bulletin; the year ending March 2026 figures were published on 23 July 2026 and the next bulletin is due on 22 October 2026. Force-level figures are in the police force area data tables

Every official release due in the next two weeks is on the release calendar.

Terms used in this answer

• Rate per 100,000
  The number of events divided by the population and multiplied by 100,000, so areas of different sizes can be compared on a like-for-like basis.
• England and Wales
  A single legal jurisdiction, so crime, courts, prisons and death registration statistics are often published for England and Wales together.
• Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW)
  A large household survey asking adults about crimes they experienced in the last year, whether or not they reported them to the police.
• Administrative data
  Information collected by organisations while running a service, such as tax records, benefit claims or hospital activity, and then used to produce statistics.
• Year-on-year change
  The change between a figure for one period and the same period twelve months earlier, such as March this year compared with March last year.

Where the figures come from

• Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) and Northern Ireland departmental statistics
  A guide to NISRA and Northern Ireland official statistics: population, census, NICEI, jobs, waiting times, PSNI crime and house prices.
• Find Case Law, legislation.gov.uk, the Sentencing Council and UK court records
  How to search UK court judgments on Find Case Law, check if a law is in force on legislation.gov.uk, and read sentencing, tribunal and CPS data.
• Defence, foreign aid and counter-terrorism statistics (MOD, FCDO, NATO, OECD, Home Office)
  Where to find official UK defence spending, armed forces numbers, NATO comparisons, foreign aid (ODA), arms export licences and terrorism statistics.

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This answer says where the official figures are published and how they are defined. It gives no verdict on any claim. To report an error, send a correction request. More questions about crime, police, prisons and courts: all Crime, police, prisons and courts questions.