How does the UK's rape rate compare to other European countries from 2020 to 2024?

1. What the key claims say — sharp rise in UK recorded rape but limited cross-country claims

The primary claims extracted from the provided materials are twofold: first, police-recorded rape in England and Wales has increased substantially in recent years, with Statista figures cited for 2024/25 showing 71,667 recorded offences and a long-term increase since 2002/03; second, broad European comparisons are fraught because surveys and police data capture different things and legal definitions vary across countries. The UK-specific claim rests on police recording trends and prosecution/outcome data that show a disconnect between reporting and charging rates, while the cross-European claim emphasizes methodological caution rather than a definitive ranking ^{[1] [2] [4] [3]}.

2. The UK's recorded-rape story — rising reports, low charge rates, and changing practices

Police-recorded data indicate a substantial increase in recorded rape offences in England and Wales, culminating in the Statista-noted 71,667 figure for 2024/25 and showing growth across the 2010s into the early 2020s. Home Office outcome data show that only a small proportion of those recorded offences result in a charge or summons—around 2–3%—highlighting a gap between reporting and criminal justice outcomes. This combination points to both increased recording and persistent challenges in investigation and prosecution, and it also suggests that an increase in recorded offences can reflect improved willingness to report, changes in police recording practices, or genuine rises in incidence—the sources do not isolate a single cause ^{[1] [2] [4]}.

3. What pan‑European data tell us — surveys, prevalence, and the EU picture

The European-level evidence supplied centers on the EU gender-based violence survey covering 2020–2024, which reports that about 30.7% of women in EU‑27 experienced physical and/or sexual violence over their lifetime and 17.2% experienced sexual violence. These survey results aim to capture prevalence through self-reported victimisation rather than police statistics, offering a different lens on comparative levels. Surveys can provide more comparable prevalence estimates across countries when executed consistently, but the EU dataset covers only EU‑27 and does not directly position the UK within that set, nor does it produce a simple per‑year rape-rate ranking comparable to police-recorded numbers ^{[5] [6] [7]}.

4. Why international rankings of “who has the highest rape rate” mislead — legal definitions and reporting effects

Analysts repeatedly warn that international comparisons of rape rates are undermined by divergent legal definitions, varying thresholds for what counts as rape, differences in police recording rules, cultural willingness to report, and whether data come from surveys or official crime registries. For example, Sweden’s high recorded rate is widely attributed by experts to a broad legal definition and high reporting, not necessarily higher incidence. The European Women’s Lobby and the Swedish National Council studies argue for standardised definitions and victim surveys as better comparative tools, but even surveys depend on methodology and sample timing. Consequently, headline comparisons without these caveats mix apples with oranges ^{[3] [8] [9]}.

5. Bottom line — what can be said reliably and what remains uncertain

The reliable, evidence-backed conclusion is that the UK experienced marked increases in police-recorded rape through 2024 and faces low prosecution rates, but this trend alone cannot place the UK definitively above or below other European countries in true prevalence terms. The EU survey offers a complementary prevalence perspective for EU countries but does not directly produce a UK-to-EU ranking using the same metric. Any meaningful comparison requires aligning measurement types—police-recorded versus survey—and adjusting for legal and cultural reporting differences. Policymakers and journalists should therefore avoid single-number cross-country claims and instead report both the measurement used and the limitations that come with it ^{[1] [4] [5] [3]}.