Honours recipients

Published 18 July 2024

Contents

1. Navigate toMain facts and figures section
2. Navigate toThings you need to know section
3. Navigate to By ethnicity and type of honour section
4. Navigate to By ethnicity and type of honour over time section
5. Navigate toData sources section
6. Navigate toDownload the data section

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

Location:: United Kingdom
Time period:: June 2024
Source:: Honours: lists, reform and operation

Percentage and number of honours recipients, by ethnicity and type of honour
Ethnicity	All %	All Number	Higher %	Higher Number	CBE %	CBE Number	OBE %	OBE Number	MBE %	MBE Number	BEM %	BEM Number
	All		Higher		CBE		OBE		MBE		BEM
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

Location:: United Kingdom
Time period:: June 2015 to June 2024
Source:: Honours: lists, reform and operation

Percentage of honours recipients and type of honour over time, by ethnicity
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
	White					All Other Ethnic Groups (Excluding White Minorities)
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

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

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