Honours recipients
Published
1. Main facts and figures
- in the New Year Honours List 2025, 87.5% of honours recipients were White (out of those whose ethnicity was known)
- 5.6% of honours recipients were Asian, 3.7% were Black, 1.9% had Mixed ethnicity, and 1.4% were from the Other ethnic group
- out of all types of honour, higher awards (including knighthoods and damehoods) had the highest percentage of recipients from the Asian, Black, Mixed and Other ethnic groups combined (21.6%)
- between June 2015 and December 2024, the total percentage of honours recipients from Asian, Black, Mixed and Other backgrounds went up from 7.0% to 12.5%
- the 2023 New Year Honours List had the highest percentage of recipients from ethnic minorities (16.4%)
2. Things you need to know
What the data measures
The data measures the ethnicity of people who receive one of the following honours in the New Year and Birthday Honours lists:
- Higher honours, including damehoods and knighthoods
- CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire)
- OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire)
- MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire)
- BEM (British Empire Medal)
New Year honours are usually published in December. For example, the 2025 New Year’s Honours were published in December 2024. Birthday honours are usually published in June. Read more about the honours system.
Percentages in the charts and tables are rounded to 1 decimal place. Differences between ethnic groups have been worked out using unrounded data.
Not included in the data
The data does not include:
- people who did not accept their honour
- honours recipients who live abroad
The ethnic groups used in the data
Data is shown for these 5 aggregated ethnic groups:
- Asian
- Black
- Mixed
- White
- Other
This means estimates are shown for these groups as a whole. This is because the number of honours recipients is too small to make any reliable conclusions about any of the 19 ethnic groups used in the 2021 Census.
For the data shown over time, results are shown for 2 aggregated ethnic groups:
- White – White ethnic groups, including White British and White ethnic minorities
- Other ethnic groups – all other ethnic groups combined
Ethnicity was not known for 0.6% of honours recipients in December 2024.
From 2023, data was classified using the 19 ethnic groups from the 2021 Census. Because of this, the Arab, Gypsy or Irish Traveller, and Roma ethnic groups only appear in the data from 2023.
Some recipients were recorded as White but did not provide their detailed ethnicity (for example, White British). These are labelled as ‘White - Unknown detailed group’ in the data file.
Methodology
The number of honours recipients is small and varies from year to year. Find out how group size affects the reliability of data.
In the data file
Download the data for:
- the number of recipients whose ethnicity was not known between June 2014 and December 2024
- unrounded data for the 19 ethnic groups used in the 2021 Census
3. By ethnicity and type of honour
| All | Higher | CBE | OBE | MBE | BEM | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethnicity | All % | All Number | Higher % | Higher Number | CBE % | CBE Number | OBE % | OBE Number | MBE % | MBE Number | BEM % | BEM Number |
| All | 100.0 | 1,177 | 100.0 | 37 | 100.0 | 100 | 100.0 | 238 | 100.0 | 488 | 100.0 | 314 |
| Asian | 5.6 | 66 | 8.1 | 3 | 10.0 | 10 | 9.2 | 22 | 3.5 | 17 | 4.5 | 14 |
| Black | 3.7 | 43 | 5.4 | 2 | 2.0 | 2 | 2.9 | 7 | 3.7 | 18 | 4.5 | 14 |
| Mixed | 1.9 | 22 | 2.7 | 1 | 4.0 | 4 | 2.9 | 7 | 1.2 | 6 | 1.3 | 4 |
| White | 87.5 | 1,030 | 78.4 | 29 | 84.0 | 84 | 83.6 | 199 | 90.0 | 439 | 88.9 | 279 |
| Other | 1.4 | 16 | 5.4 | 2 | 0.0 | 0 | 1.3 | 3 | 1.6 | 8 | 1.0 | 3 |
| Unknown | N/A* | 7 | N/A* | 0 | N/A* | 0 | N/A* | 0 | N/A* | 3 | N/A* | 4 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity and type of honour’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity and type of honour’ (CSV)
4. By ethnicity and type of honour over time
| White | All Other Ethnic Groups Combined (Excluding White Minorities) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time period | White Higher | White CBE | White OBE | White MBE | White BEM | All Other Ethnic Groups Combined (Excluding White Minorities) Higher | All Other Ethnic Groups Combined (Excluding White Minorities) CBE | All Other Ethnic Groups Combined (Excluding White Minorities) OBE | All Other Ethnic Groups Combined (Excluding White Minorities) MBE | All Other Ethnic Groups Combined (Excluding White Minorities) BEM |
| Dec-24 | 78.4 | 84.0 | 83.6 | 90.0 | 88.9 | 21.6 | 16.0 | 16.4 | 10.0 | 11.1 |
| Jun-24 | 94.6 | 88.9 | 88.4 | 88.2 | 93.8 | 5.4 | 11.1 | 11.6 | 11.8 | 6.2 |
| Dec-23 | 85.0 | 93.1 | 86.4 | 83.0 | 90.9 | 15.0 | 6.9 | 13.6 | 17.0 | 9.1 |
| Jun-23 | 93.8 | 93.1 | 89.9 | 85.6 | 89.7 | 6.2 | 6.9 | 10.1 | 14.4 | 10.3 |
| Dec-22 | 73.3 | 83.8 | 82.3 | 80.6 | 90.0 | 26.7 | 16.2 | 17.7 | 19.4 | 10.0 |
| Jun-22 | 92.9 | 91.7 | 83.0 | 82.0 | 89.4 | 7.1 | 8.3 | 17.0 | 18.0 | 10.6 |
| Dec-21 | 82.4 | 89.4 | 83.9 | 82.8 | 87.7 | 17.6 | 10.6 | 16.1 | 17.2 | 12.3 |
| Jun-21 | 97.0 | 84.6 | 82.3 | 84.3 | 86.6 | 3.0 | 15.4 | 17.7 | 15.7 | 13.4 |
| Dec-20 | 96.7 | 86.0 | 85.8 | 84.1 | 86.4 | 3.3 | 14.0 | 14.2 | 15.9 | 13.6 |
| Oct-20 | 95.5 | 84.0 | 86.7 | 80.2 | 90.1 | 4.5 | 16.0 | 13.3 | 19.8 | 9.9 |
| Dec-19 | 85.3 | 87.2 | 88.5 | 84.7 | 90.8 | 14.7 | 12.8 | 11.5 | 15.3 | 9.2 |
| Jun-19 | 96.8 | 92.6 | 84.3 | 87.3 | 93.7 | 3.2 | 7.4 | 15.7 | 12.7 | 6.3 |
| Dec-18 | 100.0 | 96.3 | 87.1 | 82.3 | 92.7 | 0.0 | 3.7 | 12.9 | 17.7 | 7.3 |
| Jun-18 | 94.3 | 90.0 | 85.2 | 87.1 | 94.7 | 5.7 | 10.0 | 14.8 | 12.9 | 5.3 |
| Dec-17 | 91.8 | 92.6 | 89.6 | 88.2 | 94.8 | 8.2 | 7.4 | 10.4 | 11.8 | 5.2 |
| Jun-17 | 94.6 | 94.9 | 88.1 | 86.8 | 94.9 | 5.4 | 5.1 | 11.9 | 13.2 | 5.1 |
| Dec-16 | 91.9 | 93.8 | 91.2 | 88.9 | 91.8 | 8.1 | 6.2 | 8.8 | 11.1 | 8.2 |
| Jun-16 | 94.4 | 93.3 | 92.4 | 87.9 | 96.6 | 5.6 | 6.7 | 7.6 | 12.1 | 3.4 |
| Dec-15 | 94.7 | 96.2 | 95.2 | 91.6 | 96.5 | 5.3 | 3.8 | 4.8 | 8.4 | 3.5 |
| Jun-15 | 84.6 | 94.4 | 94.7 | 91.3 | 95.1 | 15.4 | 5.6 | 5.3 | 8.7 | 4.9 |
| Dec-14 | 92.9 | 96.3 | 94.4 | 91.1 | 97.2 | 7.1 | 3.7 | 5.6 | 8.9 | 2.8 |
| Jun-14 | 94.9 | 94.4 | 91.1 | 92.9 | 95.9 | 5.1 | 5.6 | 8.9 | 7.1 | 4.1 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity and type of honour over time’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity and type of honour over time’ (CSV)
5. Data sources
Source
Honours: lists, reform and operation
Type of data
Administrative data
Type of statistic
Official statistics
Publisher
Cabinet Office
Publication frequency
Twice a year
Purpose of data source
The collection of this data is for statistical purposes and aids the Honours and Appointments Secretariat in ensuring equality of representation in the honours system.
6. Download the data
This file contains the following: measure ethnicity, ethnicity_type, time, time_type, geography, award_level, value, value_type, numerator, denominator