About Coventry

Demographics and communities

Coventry is the ninth largest city in England and the twelfth largest in the United Kingdom, with a population of 360,700 as of the mid-year population estimates, making it the second largest Local Authority in the West Midlands. Coventry’s population has grown by 13.8% since the 2011 Census; this rate of growth is higher than the region (8.6%) and England as a whole (8.8%). The median age of the population has increased by one year since the 2011 Census to 35 in 2021 Census, which is a full five years lower than that of the region and England at 40.

While the growth in the elderly population of Coventry has not been as fast as the growth amongst younger people in recent years, the most recent sub-national population projections indicated that population will begin to "age" during the next ten years, with the population of people aged 65 and older likely to start to increase at a faster rate than the average growth rate for all ages. In 2012 there were 47,400 Coventry residents aged 65 and over and 6,900 aged 85 and over, by 2022 this had increased to 50,700 and 7,200. The 2018-based sub-national population projections indicate that the population of Coventry aged 65 will increase to 58,900 and to 9,000 people aged 85+ by 2032.  

14.1% of the Coventry population are aged 65 or over and, despite the relatively young age compared to the region, the 55-59 age group has seen the biggest increase in the decade since 2011; this age group has increased by 27.5% in 2021.

According to the 2023 mid-year population estimates, just over one-fifth (22.3%) of the city’s population are children and young people aged under 18, 63.6% are of working-age (18-64), and the remaining 14.1% are aged 65 and over. The city’s population has grown particularly amongst younger adults, alongside the growth and success of the city’s two universities in attracting students locally and internationally and increasing numbers of better-paid jobs in certain sectors of the local economy may have attracted people here to work.

Coventry is a diverse city, with 44.7% of residents identifying as being part of an ethnic minority group, an increase from 33.4% in 2011. This is higher than the region (27.9%) and England as a whole (26.5%). Asian Indian forms the largest sub-group (9.3%). The diversity in spoken languages is also increasing, with English as a first language decreasing from 86.1% in 2011 to 82.5% in 2021. Within Coventry, Polish (2.3%), Panjabi (2.3%) and Romanian (2.1%) are the three most popular main languages spoken aside from English. Coventry has been an asylum dispersal city and more latterly a ’City of Sanctuary’ in respect of migrant populations with this population expanding post pandemic with health inequality a key priority for this and other groups within the city. Coventry’s child population is more ethnically diverse than the adult population overall and is becoming more diverse over time, this indicates that the total population is very likely to become more diverse in the future, with an increasing proportion of the city’s population being from an ethnic minority background. According to the latest school census in January 2023, 58.0% of Coventry’s school children are from an ethnic minority group up from 39.7% in 2012. The largest ethnic minorities in school children are Black African (12.0%), non-British white (10.5%), and Asian Indian (9.6%).

Deprivation within the city has improved in previous years relative to other parts of the country, according to the English Indices of Deprivation The percentage of Coventry neighbourhoods that are amongst the 10% most deprived in England reduced from 18.5% to 14.4% between 2015 and 2019. Over a quarter (25.6%) of neighbourhoods are amongst the most deprived 20% of areas (the most deprived ‘quintile’), a particular focus for the health system for tackling inequalities (the ‘Core20’).

Prospects

Nationally during 2023 economic growth was flat. Following a number of years of strong growth, Coventry’s local economy has slowed down since 2016, increasing the impact of the financial challenges presented by the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. Total annual GDP in Coventry, the value of all economic activity within the city, was at £11.776 billion in 2022, and had grown by an estimated average of 1.4% per year since 2016; this is lower than the growth across England overall (4.3%) and in the overall economy of the West Midlands combined authority area (3.2%).

Despite these challenges the city’s economy has many strengths. Coventry is home to some world class business clusters and retains a competitive advantage in some key industries including advanced manufacturing and engineering. At the West Midlands regional level, Advanced Manufacturing has suffered due to JLR’s shift in focus from volume to profit, reducing production and creating more value outside the region. Creative and Cultural activities have grown significantly across the UK but remained flat in the West Midlands. In 2023/24, £5.3m Investment income secured in Coventry, this has increased from £2.9m in 2022/23.

Government figures for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in 2023/24 shows that the West Midlands was the strongest region outside of London for FDI, with 133 projects in the region. More than a third of these projects took place in Coventry & Warwickshire and created 2,161 new jobs. Coventry & Warwickshire placed second for FDI strategy and with top 10 placings for Economic potential and business friendliness in the FDI intelligence Magazine’s annual FDI European Cities and Regions of the Future Awards 2024.

In May 2024, Coventry & Warwickshire attended the UK’s Real Estate Investment & Infrastructure Forum (UKREiiF). Coventry’s strengths in the low carbon sector were profiled alongside E.ON and our key projects such as the Investment Zone, Greenpower Park, Friargate, City Centre South, Cultural Gateway and the Strategic Energy Partnership. The new Coventry Investment Prospectus was launched at the show showcasing investment opportunities in new regeneration projects in addition to our strategic sites and investment opportunities in transport and digital innovation and green futures projects.

Wage growth has been strong in Coventry, rising above the GB average for the first time in over 20 years. The median full time gross weekly pay rose 10.5% to £698.80 in the city in 2023 compared with the previous year, moving it above the West Midlands (£651.60, a 6.0% rise), and Great Britain as a whole (£682.60, a 5.9% rise). Through the Job Shop, the Authority continues to work with Coventry residents and businesses alike to ensure that as many local residents as possible are accessing good quality employment opportunities.

The ‘cost of living crisis’ will have impacted the local economy and Coventry residents’ economic wellbeing and their health. The impact of this cost-of-living crisis on communities across the city came as people across the city face rapidly rising energy, fuel, food, and housing costs. The crisis is likely to cause problems with debt, causing a general reduction in real incomes. Financial insecurities are causing high levels of anxiety and other mental health challenges, as well as being a significant cost barrier to maintaining physical health for vulnerable groups. The deeper and immediate impacts of the cost-of-living crisis include real risk to health and wellbeing for a significant minority of Coventry residents. Disabled, long term sick, and the severely deprived are the most vulnerable with the spike in the cost of food and energy. The cost-of-living crisis is also having wider impacts that affect Coventry households well into middle incomes in terms of savings for security of housing, university, and retirement.

The national inflation rate started to increase in 2021 and continued throughout 2022 reaching 9.6% in October 2022 and by March 2023 prices were 8.9% higher than they were 12 months previously. In late 2023 inflation rates reduced but remain higher than the Bank of England’s target. Higher prices have a disproportionate impact on lower income households, although this will also affect those on middle income. The inflation rate for food and non-alcoholic drinks was much higher, in March 2023 prices rising by 19.2% in a year. While the Treasury’s published forecasts predict inflation to slow, to 2.5% in 2024, energy prices are not going to come down quickly and prices are increasing faster than wages, so standards of living have fallen a little. The Centre for Cities estimate how inflation rates vary between 63 UK cities; in March 2023 Coventry residents are estimated to be facing a 10.7% inflation rate, ranking in the middle compared to other cities, ranging between 9.3% and 11.7%. They estimate that Coventry residents were £98 a month poorer in January 2023 than in the previous years.

Despite growing opportunities, innovation and improvement in average earnings, the employment rate has fallen. This is likely due to the disruption during the COVID-19 pandemic and slow growth in the national economy in 2022. 71.9% of working-age residents were in employment in 2023, lower than 2022 (72.1%) and 2019 (73.0%), but a slight recovery from 2021 (71.5%) and 2020 (71.4%). Up until 2019 employment rates had been on an increasing trend for a few years. They remained lower than the national average of 76.0%; however, this has historically been the case, partly due to Coventry being home to two large universities. Coventry’s employment rate is not exceptionally low and is like that of other university cities. The unemployment rate in 2023 was 5.8%, equating to 11,500 residents: up from 4.9% in 2022 and it is also higher than the pre-pandemic 2019 level of 4.6%.

Economic inactivity rates have gradually increased since 2019, up to then it had been in a decreasing trend. Economic inactivity refers to people who are neither in work nor unemployed, they are not actively seeking work for various reasons. This includes full-time students, those looking after a home, people living with long-term illness, retired people, and others. In 2019 it was 22.8% and by 2023 it was slightly reduced to 22.4%, higher than the national average of 21.0%. Coventry has consistently had higher than average rates due to the relatively high number of economically inactive students, however, the increase in inactivity since 2019, is not due to inactive students of which there has been a reducing number. Increases in economic inactivity have been driven by increasing ‘involuntary’ economic inactivity, for example, people who are long-term sick; an estimated 22,200 form this group who the Centre for Cities call the ‘hidden unemployed’ (this is estimated by removing  students, retirees and people looking after family and home from inactivity figures), to add to the 11,500 Coventry residents who are unemployed (not employed and actively seeking work).

A growing proportion of the city’s residents are gaining qualifications, two-fifths of the city’s working-age population is highly qualified. In 2021, 40.7% of Coventry working-aged residents have a higher-level qualification (NVQ4 or above). This has increased by about 15 percentage points over the past decade and the city is the second highest within the West Midlands.7.6% have no qualifications, however, this is a reduction from 10% in 2018 and has halved over the past decade. A lack of qualifications may make it more difficult for someone to find more fulfilling work in the city or reduce their chances of getting positions based in Coventry as the city's jobs become more competitive and demand higher-skilled workers.

By the age of five, fewer children achieve a good level of development (61.1%) than nationally (65.2%). A child’s level of development is assessed at the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) on early learning goals in the prime areas of learning: personal, social and emotional development; physical development; and communication and language and the early learning goals in the specific areas of mathematics and literacy. These figures also represent a lower proportion than the West Midlands average (63.7%) and lower than the average amongst Coventry’s statistical neighbour areas (62%). A comparison to 2019 shows a widening of the city gap with national from 2% points to over 4% points.

89.3% of the city’s primary school pupils attend a good or outstanding school – a slight decrease in recent years but in line with national averages. The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, also known as Ofsted, inspects services providing education and training for learners and regulate services that care for children and young People. According to Ofsted’s ratings, Coventry’s primary schools saw improvements from 42% in 2013 to 91% in 2019, but a decline to 89% in 2022.

The city continues to have a slightly higher than average percentage of young people proceeding from school to a sustained education, employment, or training. In 2023 the annual trend of improvement continued, with fewer young people not enrolled in any form of education, employment, or training (NEET). It is estimated that 286 16–17-year-olds in Coventry are NEET or whose activity is not known. This is equivalent to 3.5% of that age group and is lower than the regional (5.2%) or England (5.2%) rates.

Housing and environment

Most Coventry residents live within a 20-minute walk of a general or grocery shop, public transport links, parks, pubs, GP surgery, health centre and a place of worship. In the 2022, the Coventry Household Survey found that 66% of Coventry residents were satisfied with their local area compared with 81% nationally. There has been a reduction in satisfaction from 70% in 2021 and 84% in 2018. Despite this, half of residents (51%) did not think their area had changed much in the last two years, 28% felt it had got worse and 10% suggested their local area had got better.

Green spaces can also bring communities together, reduce loneliness and mitigate the negative effects of air pollution, excessive noise, heat, and flooding. There is opportunity to work with communities to protect and improve existing green space and create new ones in areas most in need, and to implement nature-based interventions for health, such as green walking or green social prescribing.

Coventry has a strong history of supporting “Friends of” groups and community-based organisations in maintaining, developing, and improving green spaces. As well as site-specific friends of groups and the Coventry Tree Wardens, there are several sports clubs and the city’s allotments are self-managed by Coventry and District Allotment and Gardens Council.

The Green Space Strategy aims to protect the cities green spaces, from large parks and playing fields to allotments, churchyards, and riverbanks. The strategy has already seen success in investment in children’s play, more spaces being managed positively for wildlife, greater community involvement with 30 friends or volunteer groups now working with the park service, the achievement of five Green Flag Awards, the delivery of large-scale investment in War Memorial Park and Coombe Country Park supported by external funding and achieving a national award for the wildflower planting on key highways verges and within selected parks. These achievements, along with other factors, have led to a significant increase in the use of green spaces in Coventry, reflecting the national picture.

Coventry’s housing stock is typically small and old; as of March 2022, 70% of properties in Council Tax bands A to B, and just under two-thirds built before 1954. A lot of houses are not to modern efficiency standards, meaning that too many Coventry residents live in damp, poorly insulated homes, and pay too much to stay warm. According to the Government, in 2021, 20% of Coventry households live in low-income low energy efficiency households, compared to just 13% nationally.

Household overcrowding is more prevalent in Coventry than national and regional averages. Census 2021 counts 10,196 Coventry households as overcrowded, having fewer rooms than a minimum standard for the number of occupants. This amounts to 7.7% of all households, so overcrowding rates in Coventry are higher than West Midlands (5.4%) and England overall (6.4%). However, overcrowding has reduced since 2011 when it was at 9.5% of households.

The homelessness rate in the city rose higher in 2021/22 than in the previous year. This is projected to further increase in in 2022/2023, the cost-of-living crisis is a factor here. The number of households accepted under a main homelessness duty increased from 722 in 2020/21 to 800 in 2021/22. There was a 14% increase in case demand on homelessness prevention and relief services in 2021/2022 compared with 2020/2021, the Council, obtained secured accommodation for 1,167 households, compared with 1,083 in the previous year.

Coventry City Council is working with the West Midlands Combined Authority, the UK Government and National Express West Midlands on a pilot project to make Coventry the UK’s first all-electric bus city. Funding has been provided by the UK government, and Coventry City Council is working closely with National Express to ensure the necessary infrastructure is installed by 2025.

Air pollution is the largest environmental risk to the public’s health and has a harmful impact on the health of people living, working, and studying within Coventry. Met Office data, quoted by the Centre for Cities, counted 24 days in the year November 2021 – November 2022 that had poor air quality in Coventry, this ranks 17th highest out of 63 UK cities. Air quality particularly affects the most vulnerable, having a disproportionate impact on the elderly, pregnant, children, and those with cardiovascular and/or respiratory disease. Research suggests that long-term exposure to particulate air pollution contributes to death rates at a similar level as obesity and alcohol.

Initiatives to reduce air pollution and facilitate more active transport overlap considerably as they are both functions of mobility and there is opportunity for closer working across health, air quality improvement initiatives and transport to better meet the needs of Coventry residents. In Coventry, the main air quality issues identified and being addressed by the Local Air Quality Management (LAQM) process relate to residential properties that are near major arterial routes in the city, which experience high levels of congestion. Currently identified hotspots include sections of Holyhead Road, Walsgrave Road, Foleshill/Longford Road, Stoney Stanton Road and at certain junctions along the A45.

Health and wellbeing

There are some significant differences in the life expectancy of people living in Coventry. Overall life expectancy in the city is currently averaging out as 81.6 years for females and 76.8 for males and has consistently remained below the regional and national averages for the period of 2020 to 2022. On average men living in the most affluent areas of the city have a life expectancy 10.7 years longer than those living in the most deprived areas whilst for women the difference is 7.8 years for the period of 2018 to 2020.

The Integrated Care System has an opportunity to improve population health and wellbeing in its broadest sense, with a wide range of partners working together to improve health outcomes and tackle health inequalities, starting with the root causes by addressing the wider determinants of health. The development and implementation of the Integrated Care Strategy sees the importance of working together at all levels and as locally as possible. Much of the activity to integrate care and improve population health will be driven by organisations working together in places, and through multi-disciplinary teams working together in neighbourhoods, adopting new targeted and proactive approaches to service delivery, informed by a shared understanding of the needs of our population. The ICS brings together a wide range of partners – local government, NHS, voluntary and community sector, housing, Healthwatch, universities and others, to lead the system’s activity on population health and wellbeing and drive the strategic direction and plans for integration across Coventry and Warwickshire.

There is increasing recognition of the key role that places and communities play in our health. Community groups are best placed to address health challenges, because they are trusted and have the networks understanding and legitimacy to do so. Health and care providers need to shift to an ‘enabling’ leadership style, supporting communities to maintain their health and wellbeing by pooling engagement resources and helping to build capacity by sharing skills and facilities with the communities we serve. The One Coventry Plan is designed to work with our communities to ensure that they are able to address their health needs and to reduce inequalities. Since 2021, Coventry was successfully awarded funding to deliver the Healthy Communities Together (HCT) programme. This programme is funded by the National Lottery and aims to support local areas to develop effective and sustainable partnerships between the voluntary and community sector, the NHS and local authorities to improve health and wellbeing, reduce health inequalities and empower communities.