England and Wales recorded 102,678 divorces in 2023, a sharp rebound from the 80,057 granted in 2022, which had been the lowest annual total since 1971.1Office for National Statistics. Divorces and Dissolutions in England and Wales: 2023 That rebound, and the dip before it, are the key context for anyone reading UK divorce statistics right now. The Office for National Statistics publishes the most detailed figures, and they cover England and Wales only; Scotland and Northern Ireland run on separate legal systems and separate data.
The 2023 Headline Numbers
Of the 102,678 divorces in 2023, around 100,787 involved opposite-sex couples and 1,891 involved same-sex couples, the highest same-sex figure on record.1Office for National Statistics. Divorces and Dissolutions in England and Wales: 2023 The year before, the equivalent splits were 78,759 opposite-sex and 1,298 same-sex divorces.2Office for National Statistics. Divorces in England and Wales: 2022
The 2022 slump had less to do with changing attitudes to marriage than with plumbing. In April 2022, England and Wales switched to no-fault divorce under the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020.3Legislation.gov.uk. Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 Old-system applications still had to work through the courts while a new digital portal took in a wave of fresh ones, and the handover produced an artificially low count. By 2023 the system had largely caught up. Even so, the 2023 total sits well below the mid-1990s peaks, when annual divorces regularly exceeded 150,000. The long-term trajectory is still one of gradual decline.
Expressed as a rate, 2023 produced 8.6 divorces per 1,000 married men and 8.5 per 1,000 married women.1Office for National Statistics. Divorces and Dissolutions in England and Wales: 2023
Who Gets Divorced
Divorce clusters in middle age. The peak rates historically fall in the 45-to-49 bracket for both men and women. Part of the reason is demographic: people marry later than they used to, so the statistically riskiest years of a marriage line up with the late forties rather than the late thirties.
Later-life divorce has been climbing in absolute terms. Between 2005 and 2015, the number of men aged 65 and over who divorced rose by 23%, and the number of women in the same bracket rose by 38%.4Office for National Statistics. Marriage and Divorce on the Rise at 65 and Over Much of that increase simply tracks the growing size of the over-65 population, but the headcount matters in its own right: more older people are now dividing pensions and housing equity in a divorce than in previous generations.
Same-Sex Divorce Patterns
The record 1,891 same-sex divorces in 2023 will keep rising mechanically, because the pool of same-sex marriages grows each year following the law’s introduction in 2014. Within that total, female couples have consistently made up the large majority. In 2019, 72% of same-sex divorces involved female couples.5Office for National Statistics. Divorces in England and Wales: 2019 Researchers have offered a mix of explanations: women initiate divorce more often than men in general, female couples may have converted earlier civil partnerships into marriages (carrying prior relationship years with them), and gendered expectations around relationship upkeep may differ. None is settled, but the pattern has held every year.
How Long Marriages Last Before Divorce
The median duration of a marriage ending in divorce in 2023 was 12.7 years for opposite-sex couples.1Office for National Statistics. Divorces and Dissolutions in England and Wales: 2023 That is measured from wedding day to final order, so the real separation usually began a year or two earlier. For same-sex couples the medians were shorter: 7.2 years for male couples and 6.3 years for female couples, largely because same-sex marriage has only been available since 2014 and no such marriage can yet be older than that.
The statistical danger zone sits between the fifth and tenth wedding anniversaries. After twenty years, the likelihood of a marriage ending drops considerably. Long marriages are not immune, but the pattern is consistent across decades of data.
Who Files
Women have long been more likely than men to start divorce proceedings. In 2021, the last full year under the old fault-based system, women petitioned in 63.1% of opposite-sex divorces.6Office for National Statistics. Divorces in England and Wales: 2021
The no-fault system allows couples to apply either individually (a sole application) or together (a joint one). In 2023, about 73% of no-fault divorces were sole applications.1Office for National Statistics. Divorces and Dissolutions in England and Wales: 2023 Even when nobody has to assign blame, most divorces are still driven by one spouse rather than both acting jointly.
How No-Fault Divorce Changed Things
Before April 2022, you had to prove irretrievable breakdown by establishing one of five facts under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973: adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion for at least two years, two years of separation with consent, or five years of separation without it.7Legislation.gov.uk. Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 Most people picked whichever ground was fastest. Unreasonable behaviour dominated because it did not require a long separation.
The 2020 Act removed those five facts.3Legislation.gov.uk. Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 One or both spouses now file a simple statement that the marriage has broken down irretrievably. The process runs on a fixed minimum timetable: at least 20 weeks between the initial application and the conditional order (formerly decree nisi), then at least six weeks and one day before the final order (formerly decree absolute). The shortest realistic path from application to divorce is therefore roughly 26 weeks.
By 2023, about 74% of divorces were finalised under the new rules, with the rest being older cases still clearing the pipeline under the old law.1Office for National Statistics. Divorces and Dissolutions in England and Wales: 2023 That remainder will shrink to zero in time.
What a Divorce Costs
The court application fee in England and Wales is £612, charged the same whether the application is sole or joint.8GOV.UK. Get a Divorce: How to Apply That covers the court’s processing only. Solicitor fees sit on top, ranging from a few hundred pounds for a straightforward consent order to tens of thousands if finances are contested. People on low incomes may qualify for a fee remission that reduces or removes the court charge.
The bigger money is almost always in the financial settlement rather than the divorce itself. Pension sharing orders need actuarial valuations and separate court applications, and pensions are often one of the largest marital assets, yet only about one in five divorcing couples takes formal steps to divide pension wealth. Skipping that step tends to hurt the spouse who spent more time out of paid work.
Scotland and Northern Ireland
Every figure above is for England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own family law and their own statistical agencies. Scottish law begins financial settlements from an equal split of assets acquired between wedding and separation, and ongoing maintenance is generally limited to three years. Northern Ireland has not adopted no-fault divorce; petitioners there must still establish one of the traditional grounds. For statistics covering those jurisdictions, the National Records of Scotland and the Northern Ireland Courts and Tribunals Service are the relevant sources.