Sexual orientation, UK: 2018

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Experimental statistics on sexual orientation in the UK in 2018 by region, sex, age, marital status, ethnicity and socio-economic classification.

The proportion of the UK population aged 16 years and over identifying as heterosexual or straight decreased from 95.3% in 2014 to 94.6% in 2018.
The proportion identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) increased from 1.6% in 2014 to 2.3% in 2018.
In 2018, there were an estimated 1.2 million people aged 16 years and over identifying as LGB.
Men (2.5%) were more likely to identify as LGB than women (2.0%) in 2018.
Younger people (aged 16 to 24 years) were most likely to identify as LGB in 2018 (4.4%).
Among English regions, people in London were most likely to identify as LGB (2.8%), with people in the North East the least likely (1.8%).
More than two-thirds (68.7%) of people who identified as LGB were single (never married or in a civil partnership).

‘People in their late teens and early twenties a...