Northern Ireland Population Estimates for SOAs and Electoral Wards

Mid-year population estimates relate to the population as of 30th June each year. They are used to allocate public funds via the Barnett formula and for planning services like health and education by Northern Ireland government departments. These estimates also enable demographic research and allow for rate-based comparisons across the UK and other countries.

Use Cases

• Allocating public funds to the Northern Ireland Executive based on population figures.
• Planning health and education services using demographic data for specific areas.
• Expressing other statistics as rates for UK-wide or international comparisons.
• Creating future population projections based on current estimate trends.

Strengths

• Data is used for official government functions, including the Barnett formula for fund allocation.
• Estimates are produced for specific geographies like Super Output Areas (SOAs) and former Electoral Wards.
• The dataset has a cross-platform presence on uk_data and eu_open_data, indicating its importance.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as column names, row count, and data size are unknown across all sources.
• The 'last updated' date of 2026-07-08 appears to be a future date, which is a conflict and suggests potential metadata error.
• Descriptions are identical across platforms, offering no additional detail or context.

Provenance

Source

OpenDataNI

Collection Method

Official government population statistics, likely derived from administrative records and censuses.

Time Range

Annual, as of 30th June (mid-year estimates). Specific years are not provided.

Freshness

2026-07-08 13:33:23.538282

Geography

Northern Ireland, at the Super Output Area (SOA) and former Electoral Ward level.