Population figures Newham has, after Barnet and Croydon, the third highest population of the London boroughs, with a population numbering 382,984 as of 2021. Despite growing since the 1980s, it is still drastically lower than its pre-war peak. In the period between 1951 and 1981, Newham's population shrunk by 28.87% owing to factors such as the war bombings and the increasingly high unemployment. The redevelopment of the
Docklands as well as development related to the 2012 Olympics have contributed to reversing its declining trend.
Ethnicities Newham has the youngest overall population and one of the lowest
White British populations in the country according to the
2011 UK Census. At 32%, the borough has the second-highest percentage of
Muslims in the UK, after the neighbouring
London Borough of Tower Hamlets. A 2017 report from
Trust for London and the
New Policy Institute found that 36% of local employees in Newham are in low paid work; the highest percentage of any London borough. Newham also has a 37% poverty rate, which is the second-highest rate in London. Average income in Newham is £52,342 per year, compared with the London average of £60,319, which is approximately 13.2% lower than the London average. Newham is very ethnically diverse. When using Simpson's Diversity Index on 10 aggregated ethnic groups, the
2001 UK Census identified Newham as the most
ethnically diverse district in England and Wales, with 9 wards in the top 15. However, when using the 16 ethnic categories in the Census so that White
Irish and
White Other ethnic minorities are also included in the analysis, Newham becomes the second-most ethnically diverse borough with six out of the top 15 wards, behind
Brent with 7 out of the top 15 wards. Newham has the lowest percentage of both total White and White British residents of all of London's boroughs. The joint-lowest wards with White British population are Green Street East and Green Street West, each having 4.8% – the third-lowest behind Southall Broadway and Southall Green in
Ealing. East Ham North follows closely, at 4.9%. As of the 2021 UK census, people of "Bangladeshi" ethnicity are the largest single group in the borough at 15.9%. "White British" are the second largest group at 14.8%, with "White Other" third largest at 14.6%, "African" fourth largest at 11.6%, "Indian" next largest at 11% and then "Pakistani" at 8.9%. Newham has had a large Asian community for many decades; more than half of Newham's Upton and Kensington wards were of ethnic minority origin in 1981. The nationality to increase the most in number since 1991 is the Bangladeshi community. Newham has the largest total population of Asian origin in London; it is notably a borough with high populations of all three largest British Asian nationalities, having the 5th highest Indian population in London and the 2nd highest each for both Pakistani and Bangladeshi. Newham has 1,340 residents who were born in Ukraine, the highest population of Ukrainians in the UK.
Health In 2018, Newham had the lowest life expectancy and the highest rate of
heart disease of all London boroughs together with the
London Borough of Tower Hamlets. In 2019, the BBC reported that Newham had the highest rate of
tuberculosis in the UK at 107 per population, which was higher than
Rwanda (69) and
Iraq (45) according to WHO figures from 2013. More than 80% of TB cases in London occur in people born abroad. The UK average was 13.
Religion The following table shows the religious identity of residents residing in Newham according to the 2001, 2011 and the 2021 censuses.
Transgender identity The 2021 census showed that 1.5% of adults in Newham identified as
transgender, derived from the Census question, "Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?". This gave Newham the highest proportion of transgender adults with the
Borough of Brent coming second (at 1.3%). The overall proportion in England and Wales was 0.5% with Brighton, an area well known for its LGBT communities, 1%. However, Prof Michael Biggs of Oxford University showed there was a correlation between the proportion of transgender people in these areas and the proportion for whom English was not their first language (35% in Newham and 34% in Brent, compared to 9% nationally), suggesting the question was not fully understood by some. Prof Biggs described the figures as "irredeemably flawed". In September 2024, Mary Gregory, a deputy director at the
ONS said some people may have misunderstood the question, saying there was "potential bias" in how the question was answered "by those who responded that they had lower levels of English proficiency, some of whom may have mistakenly given an answer suggesting they were trans". As a result, the ONS downgraded the data from "accredited official statistics" to "official statistics in development" to reflect the possible flaws. ==Education== A 2017 report by
Trust for London and the
New Policy Institute finds that the GCSE attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils in Newham is the 4th best out of 32 London boroughs.
Schools and colleges The Borough is the education authority for the district providing education in a mix of
Foundation,
community and
voluntary aided schools. The borough also owns and operates
Debden House, a residential
adult education college in
Loughton,
Essex, and is home to the Rosetta Art Centre, a dedicated
visual art organisation which delivers courses at its base in
Stratford and produces participatory art projects, programmes and initiatives. The Essex Primary School in Sheridan Road with over 900 pupils is one of the biggest primary schools in London.
Universities The
University of East London has two campuses in Newham: • the
Stratford Campus, at
Stratford • the
Docklands Campus, next to the regenerated
Royal Albert Dock Birkbeck Stratford is a collaboration between
Birkbeck, University of London and UEL to increase participation in adult learning. This is based on the UEL/Birkbeck shared campus, USS (University Square Stratford), in the centre of Stratford. The University of East London had formed a partnership with the
United States Olympic Committee which resulted in the United States Olympic Team using University of East London campuses as training bases during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. In September 2021, London College of Fashion had relocated to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park at Stratford, London. It is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art university in London, England. UCL East is a campus of University College London located at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, London. Operations at the campus began with the opening of One Pool Street in 2022 and the campus was formally opened with the opening of the Marshgate building in 2023. The 2017 masterplan for the campus calls for the construction of another four buildings in the 2030s. The Stratford Waterfront now accommodates facilities for Sadler's Wells and the Victoria & Albert Museum, as well as the new UAL campus for the London College of Fashion and a new university campus for University College London. ==Places of interest==