Key Rural Issues 2025 Publication

Date published: 7 May 2026

This publication presents publicly available data from a range of Government and non-Government sources, from a unique urban/rural perspective, in order to highlight key urban/rural differences and disparities across a range of domains.

Key statistics from the report are summarised below:

• Population growth in rural areas from 2001-20 has outstripped that in urban areas by a factor of almost 3 to 1 (20% to 7%).
• Young people from rural areas are more likely to leave school with 5 or more GCSEs at A* to C including GCSE English and GCSE Maths (77%, 68% in urban areas).
• Those from rural areas leaving school are also more likely to enter further or higher education (73%) than their urban peers (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 living in urban areas.
• Average public sector earnings in urban areas (£35,620) exceed those in rural areas (£32,901), a trend also evident in private sector earnings in rural compared with urban workplaces.
• Workers from rural areas report being more highly skilled (55%) and are more likely to report high job satisfaction than urban workers (85% to 82%).
• More than half (58%) of NI businesses are located in rural areas, yet rural businesses account for just 21% of employees, and just 31% of all business turnover.
• Rural businesses predominantly engage in agriculture, forestry, fishing and construction (57%), with urban businesses more widely spread across a variety of sectors.
• Rural workers (89%) were also much more likely to use their own transport to commute than those from urban areas (77%).
• Broadband availability and speeds in rural areas continue to increase rapidly, with full-fibre services available to 91% of rural NI households in 2025 (from 65% in 2022).
• People living in rural areas are consistently more likely to rate their happiness and life satisfaction as high, and their anxiety levels as low.
• In 2025, life expectancy is higher in rural areas (80.4 years for males, 83.9 years for females). Rural dwellers continue to wait longer for emergency service response than their urban counterparts.
• People from rural areas are less likely to directly experience several crime types than those in urban areas (including burglary, vandalism and violent crime).
• In rural areas, recorded crimes with a racist motivation more than tripled from 59 in 2023/24 to 200 in 2024/25.
• Similar proportions of urban and rural households are in relative poverty (18% urban, 17% rural) or absolute poverty (15% urban, 14% rural).
• Rural children in 2023-24 were less likely to experience absolute poverty than their urban counterparts (16% in rural areas, 25% in urban areas).
• Levels of home ownership are higher in rural than in urban areas (77% to 66%), with house prices in rural areas continuing to outstrip those in towns and cities.

Further information can be found in the Key Rural Issues 2025 report published on the DAERA website.