Honours recipients

Published

1. Main facts and figures

  • in the King’s Birthday Honours List 2024, 90% of honours recipients were white (out of those whose ethnicity was known)

  • 5% of honours recipients were Asian, 3% were black, 2% had mixed ethnicity, and less than 0.5% were from the ‘other’ ethnic group

  • white people received 95% of higher honours, including damehoods and knighthoods

  • out of all types of honour, MBEs had the highest percentage of recipients from the Asian, black, mixed and ‘other’ ethnic groups combined (12%)

  • between June 2015 and June 2024, the percentage of honours recipients from ethnic minorities (not including white minorities) went up from 6% to 10%

  • the New Year’s Honours list 2022 had the highest percentage of recipients from ethnic minorities (16%)

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)

Read more about the honours system. Percentages are rounded to whole numbers, but all differences have been worked out using unrounded data (available in the data file).

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.

Download the data for data on the 19 ethnic groups.

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 less than 0.5% of honours recipients in June 2024.

Methodology

The number of honours recipients is small and varies from year to year. Find out how group size affects the reliability of data.

Ethnicity classifications used for data from 2023 are slightly different to those for previous years, so some groups are not comparable over time.

There are some cases where a recipient’s ethnicity was recorded as white, but they did not provide their detailed ethnicity (for example, ‘white British’). These are labelled as “White - Unknown detailed group” in the data file.

In the data file

See Download the data for:

  • the number of recipients whose ethnicity was not known between June 2014 and June 2024

  • unrounded data for the 19 ethnic groups used in the 2021 Census

3. By ethnicity and type of honour

Percentage and number of honours recipients, 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 5 50 3 1 3 3 5 12 6 25 3 9
Black 3 33 0 0 4 4 1 2 4 18 3 9
Mixed 2 18 0 0 3 3 4 8 2 7 0 0
White 90 956 95 35 89 80 88 198 88 372 94 271
Other ~0 5 3 1 0 0 2 4 0 0 0 0
Unknown N/A* 1 N/A* 0 N/A* 0 N/A* 1 N/A* 0 N/A* 0

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

Percentage of honours recipients and type of honour over time, by ethnicity
White All Other Ethnic Groups (Excluding White Minorities)
Time period White Higher White CBE White OBE White MBE White BEM All Other Ethnic Groups (Excluding White Minorities) Higher All Other Ethnic Groups (Excluding White Minorities) CBE All Other Ethnic Groups (Excluding White Minorities) OBE All Other Ethnic Groups (Excluding White Minorities) MBE All Other Ethnic Groups (Excluding White Minorities) BEM
Jun-15 85 94 95 91 95 15 6 5 9 5
Dec-15 95 96 95 92 96 5 4 5 8 4
Jun-16 94 93 92 88 97 6 7 8 12 3
Dec-16 92 94 91 89 92 8 6 9 11 8
Jun-17 95 95 88 87 95 5 5 12 13 5
Dec-17 92 93 90 88 95 8 7 10 12 5
Jun-18 94 90 85 87 95 6 10 15 13 5
Dec-18 100 96 87 82 93 0 4 13 18 7
Jun-19 97 93 84 87 94 3 7 16 13 6
Dec-19 85 87 89 85 91 15 13 12 15 9
Oct-20 95 84 87 80 90 5 16 13 20 10
Dec-20 97 86 86 84 86 3 14 14 16 14
Jun-21 97 85 82 84 87 3 15 18 16 13
Dec-21 82 89 84 83 88 18 11 16 17 12
Jun-22 93 92 83 82 89 7 8 17 18 11
Dec-22 73 84 82 81 90 27 16 18 19 10
Jun-23 94 93 90 86 90 6 7 10 14 10
Dec-23 85 93 86 83 91 15 7 14 17 9
Jun-24 95 89 88 88 94 5 11 12 12 6

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

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

King's Birthday Honours 2024 - Spreadsheet (csv) 377 KB

This file contains the following variables: measure, ethnicity, ethnicity_type, time time_type, geography, award_level, value, value_type, numerator, denominator