Knife crime in England and Wales drops by 10%, data shows

Knife crime in England and Wales has dropped by 10%, new figures show.

A total of 49,151 knife offences were logged by forces in England and Wales in 2025, down from 54,548 in 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The figure is lower than the 49,190 offences recorded in 2021/22, but higher than the 44,728 in the first year of the pandemic, 2020/21.

This means the levels of police-recorded knife crime are now at their lowest since the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The majority of police forces in England and Wales (29 out of 44) recorded a year-on-year fall in incidents of knife crime in 2025, including the three largest: the Metropolitan Police, where offences dropped 17%; Greater Manchester, also down 17%; and West Midlands, down 15%.

Nearly half of forces (20 out of 44) saw a fall in homicides, including the Met and Greater Manchester.

Homicides involving a knife or sharp instrument also fell by 21% last year, with some 172 knife homicides logged by forces in England and Wales, down from 217 in 2024 and the lowest annual number since comparable data began in 2010/2011.

The fall helped drive down the total number of homicides last year, which stood at 503, down 6% from 534 in 2024.

The latest ONS data also showed a slight fall in shoplifting offences, down from 516,611 in 2024 to 509,566 in 2025, but this drop may reflect a change in how police forces record shoplifting offences.

A clarification issued to forces by the Home Office in April 2025 said that where someone has entered a retail premises, steals, then either uses or threatens violence against staff or other people, the offence should be recorded as robbery of business property, not shoplifting.

This change might also explain the steep increase in offences classed as robbery of businesses, which rose by 78% from 14,691 in 2024 to 26,158 in 2025.

Sarah Jones, crime and policing minister, said that the government is "driving down crimes that blight communities and have previously gone unpunished", adding: "We will continue to build on this progress and not stop until every community feels a change."

She said 17% more charges have been brought against shoplifters in 2025, and vowed that policing reforms would deliver "lasting change".

Chris Philp, shadow home secretary, said shoplifting offences recorded by police had risen 8% since the general election, and claimed that "shop workers face more risk confronting a thief than the thief faces from the police".

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Overall, police forces recorded 5.24 million offences in England and Wales in 2025, which excludes fraud and computer misuse. This number is 2% down from 5.34 million in 2024.

The total is slightly below the 5.31 million in the pre-pandemic year of 2019/20, but up from 3.9 million a decade earlier in 2015/16.

But the ONS said increases in the number of offences over the last decade "have been largely influenced by improvements in recording standards", and therefore police-recorded crime "is not considered a reliable indicator of overall crime trends".

(c) Sky News 2026: Knife crime in England and Wales drops by 10%, data shows