Knife homicides recorded by police in England and Wales fell by 21% in 2025, while overall knife crime dropped by 10%, according to new figures. A total of 172 knife homicides were logged by forces last year, down from 217 in 2024, marking the lowest annual number since comparable data began in 2010/11.
The decline contributed to a 6% reduction in total homicides, which stood at 503 in 2025 compared to 534 the previous year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported. Levels of police-recorded knife crime are now at their lowest since the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Some 49,151 knife offences were recorded by forces in England and Wales in 2025, down from 54,548 in 2024. This figure is lower than the 49,190 offences recorded in 2021/22 but remains above the 44,728 logged during the first year of the pandemic in 2020/21.
Regional Variations
Two-thirds of police forces in England and Wales (29 out of 44) recorded a year-on-year fall in knife crime incidents. The three largest forces all saw reductions: the Metropolitan Police recorded a 17% drop, Greater Manchester also fell 17%, and West Midlands decreased by 15%. Nearly half of forces (20 out of 44) reported a decline in homicides, including the Met and Greater Manchester.
Shoplifting and Robbery Data
The latest ONS data also shows a slight decrease in shoplifting offences, from 516,611 in 2024 to 509,566 in 2025. However, this drop may reflect a change in recording practices. A Home Office clarification issued in April 2025 advised forces that where someone enters a retail premises, steals, and then uses or threatens violence against staff or others, the offence should be recorded as robbery of business property rather than shoplifting.
This change likely contributed to a steep increase in offences classed as robbery of businesses, which rose 78% from 14,691 in 2024 to 26,158 in 2025.
Government and Opposition Reactions
Sarah Jones, crime and policing minister, said the government is “driving down crimes that blight communities and have previously gone unpunished.” She added: “We will continue to build on this progress and not stop until every community feels a change. Rates of shop and phone theft remain unacceptably high. But these figures show that our swift, decisive action is turning the tide: shoplifting is down on last year. The number of shoplifters facing justice continues to soar under this government, with 17% more charges in just a year.”
Jones also highlighted policing reforms: “A new National Police Service will tackle nationwide and cross-border crime, meaning local forces will be better focused on policing their areas and protecting communities.”
Chris Philp, shadow home secretary, offered a contrasting view, stating that shoplifting offences recorded by police had risen 8% since the general election and had “become the defining symbol of Labour’s breakdown of law and order: a crime so routine, so consequence-free, that shop workers face more risk confronting a thief than the thief faces from the police.” He accused the government of cutting police numbers by over 1,300, releasing 50,000 criminals early, and legislating to abolish prison sentences under a year. Philp pledged: “The Conservatives will reverse this. Our Take Back Our Streets plan puts 10,000 extra officers on the street, triples stop-and-search, and introduces facial recognition in the worst crime hotspots.”
Overall Crime Trends
Police forces recorded 5.24 million offences in England and Wales in 2025, excluding fraud and computer misuse, down 2% from 5.34 million in 2024. This total is slightly below the 5.31 million in the pre-pandemic year of 2019/20 but up from 3.90 million a decade earlier in 2015/16. The ONS noted that increases over the last 10 years “have been largely influenced by improvements in recording standards,” meaning police-recorded crime “is not considered a reliable indicator of overall crime trends.”
Separate figures from the ONS Crime Survey for England and Wales suggest that people aged 16 and over experienced 9.58 million incidents of crime in 2025, broadly unchanged from 9.61 million in 2024. This is 15% lower than the 11.22 million incidents in 2016/17, the earliest comparable year. The survey “provides a reliable measure of crime trends for the population, and the offence types it covers” because it is not affected by police reporting or recording changes, the ONS said. It covers a range of personal and household victim-based crime but excludes sexual offences, stalking, harassment, and domestic abuse. Experiences of theft, criminal damage, and violence with or without injury have been on a broad downward trend since the mid-1990s.
