Rural population grows three times faster than urban
Date published:
New official statistics published today by NISRA statisticians in the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) present Key Rural Issues 2025, a wide-ranging overview of life in rural Northern Ireland across areas including employment, health, housing, crime, connectivity, and education.
Key findings
- More than a third (36%) of Northern Ireland's population lives in a rural area. Population growth in rural areas between 2001 and 2020 outstripped that in urban areas by nearly three to one (20% compared to 7%).
- Young people from rural areas are more likely to leave school with five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and Maths (77%, compared to 68% in urban areas), and are more likely to go on to further or higher education (73%, compared to 69%).
- Rural people of working age are more likely to be in full-time employment (62%) and less likely to be economically inactive (22%) than those in urban areas. Workers in rural areas also report higher levels of job satisfaction (85%) than their urban counterparts (82%).
- In 2025, median annual salaries for both public and private sector workers were higher in urban areas than in rural areas. Public sector workers in urban areas earned a median of £35,620, compared to £28,567 in rural areas.
- Full-fibre broadband availability in rural Northern Ireland has improved substantially, rising from 65% of households in 2022 to 91% in 2025, the highest rural full-fibre availability of any UK nation.
- Rural house prices continue to rise, with the average house price in rural areas reaching £225,092 in Q4 2025, compared to £185,530 in urban areas, an 8% increase in rural prices over the previous year.
- Levels of recorded crime remain substantially lower in rural than in urban areas. Between 2023/24 and 2024/25, recorded burglary, robbery and theft offences decreased by 16% in rural areas to 3,469, and by 9% in urban areas to 19,860.
- Despite facing particular challenges around access to services and longer emergency response times, rural dwellers continue to report higher levels of wellbeing than urban residents. In 2024-25, 39% of rural respondents reported high happiness levels, compared to 35% in urban areas.
About this publication
Key Rural Issues 2025 draws together a wide range of publicly available data from across government departments to provide a detailed urban/rural comparison across Northern Ireland. It covers population and education, employment and industry, tourism, connectivity, access to services, health and wellbeing, crime, and household income, housing and poverty.
Further information
View the full report, data tables and background information: Key Rural Issues | Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs
Access Census 2021 data on the Rural Data Hub