Honours recipients
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1. Main facts and figures
- in December 2019 (the 2020 New Year’s Honours List), 87.5% of honours recipients were White (out of those whose ethnicity was known)
- 6.3% of honours recipients were Asian, 3.8% were Black, 2.0% had Mixed ethnicity, and 0.4% were from the Other ethnic group
- White people received 85.3% of higher honours (including damehoods and knighthoods) awarded
- out of all types of honour, MBEs had the greatest percentage of recipients from ethnic minorities (excluding White minority groups), at 15.3%
- between June 2014 and December 2019, the percentage of honours recipients from ethnic minorities increased from 6.5% to 12.5%
Things you need to know
Honours nominees are asked about their ethnic group when they are asked whether they would like to accept an honour. The data does not include people offered an honour who do not accept. The data includes people who appear on the Queen's Birthday and New Year's Honours lists and who receive awards mainly in the Order of the British Empire. The numbers of honours recipients are small and vary from year to year. Use caution when making any generalisations. Consider both the percentage and number of recipients from different ethnic groups. The data excludes honours recipients whose ethnicity wasn’t known. This accounts for 13.5% of recipients in December 2019.
For the numbers of recipients whose ethnicity wasn’t known between 2014 and 2019, download the data.
What the data measures
This data measures the ethnicity of honours recipients in the Queen’s Birthday and New Year’s Honours lists who receive an award in the Order of the British Empire.
Honours lists are published twice a year, in December and June, with around 1,200 people in each list.
This data includes 5 types of honour:
- 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)
Recipients are nominated by someone else. If the independent honours committee approves the nomination, the nominee is asked if they would like to accept the honour.
The honours committee decides the type of honour that someone receives. There are 10 honours committees covering nominations from different sectors.
You can read more about the honours system.
The ethnic categories used in this data
Honours recipients reported their own ethnicity according to the 2011 Census categories.
Because the number of honours recipients is small (around 1,200 per honours list), figures are shown for the following 5 aggregated ethnic groups:
- Asian
- Black
- Mixed
- White
- Other
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 than White – all other ethnic minorities
2. 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 |
| Asian | 6.3 | 60 | 0.0 | 0 | 5.3 | 5 | 6.0 | 12 | 8.1 | 29 | 5.3 | 14 |
| Black | 3.8 | 36 | 14.7 | 5 | 4.3 | 4 | 3.0 | 6 | 3.9 | 14 | 2.7 | 7 |
| Mixed | 2.0 | 19 | 0.0 | 0 | 2.1 | 2 | 2.0 | 4 | 2.8 | 10 | 1.1 | 3 |
| White | 87.5 | 830 | 85.3 | 29 | 87.2 | 82 | 88.5 | 177 | 84.7 | 304 | 90.8 | 238 |
| Other | 0.4 | 4 | 0.0 | 0 | 1.1 | 1 | 0.5 | 1 | 0.6 | 2 | 0.0 | 0 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity and type of honour’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity and type of honour’ (CSV)
Summary of Honours recipients By ethnicity and type of honour Summary
The data shows that, in December 2019 (the 2020 New Year’s Honours List):
- 87.5% of honours recipients were White (out of those whose ethnicity was known)
- Asian people were the most likely to receive an honour out of all ethnic minority groups (6.3%), followed by Black people (3.8%), people from Mixed ethnic groups (2.0%) and people from Other ethnic backgrounds (0.4%)
- of those who received a higher honour, like a knighthood or damehood, 85.3% were White and 14.7% were Black – there were no higher honour recipients from Asian, Mixed or Other ethnic backgrounds
- out of all types of honour, MBEs had the highest percentage of recipients from ethnic minorities (15.3%)
3. By ethnicity and type of honour over time
| White | Other than White | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time period | White Higher | White CBE | White OBE | White MBE | White BEM | Other than White Higher | Other than White CBE | Other than White OBE | Other than White MBE | Other than White BEM |
| Jun-14 | 94.9 | 94.4 | 91.1 | 92.9 | 95.9 | 5.1 | 5.6 | 8.9 | 7.1 | 4.1 |
| Dec-14 | 92.9 | 96.3 | 94.4 | 91.1 | 97.2 | 7.1 | 3.7 | 5.6 | 8.9 | 2.8 |
| Jun-15 | 84.6 | 94.4 | 94.7 | 91.3 | 95.1 | 15.4 | 5.6 | 5.3 | 8.7 | 4.9 |
| Dec-15 | 94.7 | 96.2 | 95.2 | 91.6 | 96.5 | 5.3 | 3.8 | 4.8 | 8.4 | 3.5 |
| Jun-16 | 94.4 | 93.3 | 92.4 | 87.9 | 96.6 | 5.6 | 6.7 | 7.6 | 12.1 | 3.4 |
| Dec-16 | 91.9 | 93.8 | 91.2 | 88.9 | 91.8 | 8.1 | 6.3 | 8.8 | 11.1 | 8.2 |
| Jun-17 | 94.6 | 94.9 | 88.1 | 86.8 | 94.9 | 5.4 | 5.1 | 11.9 | 13.2 | 5.1 |
| Dec-17 | 91.8 | 92.6 | 89.6 | 88.2 | 94.8 | 8.2 | 7.4 | 10.4 | 11.8 | 5.2 |
| Jun-18 | 94.3 | 90.0 | 85.2 | 87.1 | 94.7 | 5.7 | 10.0 | 14.8 | 12.9 | 5.3 |
| Dec-18 | 100.0 | 96.3 | 87.1 | 82.3 | 92.7 | 0.0 | 3.7 | 12.9 | 17.7 | 7.3 |
| Jun-19 | 96.8 | 92.6 | 84.3 | 87.3 | 93.7 | 3.2 | 7.4 | 15.7 | 12.7 | 6.3 |
| Dec-19 | 85.3 | 87.2 | 88.5 | 84.7 | 90.8 | 14.7 | 12.8 | 11.5 | 15.3 | 9.2 |
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)
Summary of Honours recipients By ethnicity and type of honour over time Summary
This data shows that, where ethnicity was known:
- between June 2014 and December 2019, the percentage of honours recipients from ethnic minorities (excluding White minorities) almost doubled, from 6.5% to 12.5%
- the percentage of OBE recipients from ethnic minorities (excluding White minorities) increased from 4.8% in December 2015 to 11.5% in December 2019 – it was highest in June 2019 (15.7%)
4. Methodology
Honours recipients complete a diversity monitoring survey when they accept their honour which asks them to indicate which ethnic group they identify with.
The responses are sent back to the Honours and Appointments Secretariat, which collects the data for statistical purposes.
Suppression rules and disclosure control
Values have not been suppressed because the identities of recipients are publicly available when honours lists are published.
Rounding
Percentages in the charts and tables are given to 1 decimal point but all differences have been calculated using unrounded data.
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: Ethnicity, Category, Time, Value, Number