Post office branches: statistics and developments

As of March 2024, there were 11,805 post office branches in the UK.

In return for its funding the Post Office is committed to maintaining around 11,500 post office branches and meeting certain criteria on the location of post offices.

Developments

The government have said it will consult on the future of the post office network in the first half of 2025.

The interim chair of the Post Office announced a five-year Transformation Plan in November 2024. This aims to deliver a ‘New Deal for Postmasters’ that “significantly increases their total annual income through revenue sharing and strengthens their role in the direction of the organisation”. This follows a strategic review and is subject to government funding.

Trends

Between March 2023 and March 2024, the number of post offices rose by 1% to 11,805, the highest number since March 2012.

This figure includes 606 of the new drop & collect post offices, which are branches that focus on prepaid parcels and bill payments.

Since 2009 the number of post offices in the UK has remained reasonably consistent.

Types of post offices

At the end of March 2024, there were:

• 9,250 standard agency branches, 78% of the network.
• 1,834 outreach services, 16% of the network.
• 606 drop & collect branches, 5% of the network.
• 115 Crown or directly managed branches, 1% of the network.

Crown post offices

The number of Crown (directly managed) branches has fallen significantly over recent decades.

It is the Post Office’s ambition to operate the post office network on a fully franchised basis in time. This suggests that these Crown branches will be closed or be run by someone else. Decisions on the future of these branches have however not yet been taken.

Drop & collect branches

Drop & collect branches focus on pre-paid parcels and bill payments, rather than providing a full post office service. The first of these opened in late 2021 and they made up 5% of the network by 2024.

Outreach branches

Outreach services are typically small part-time branches. There has been a significant rise in the number of outreach services since 2000 – going from less than 1% of the total in 2000 to 16% of the total network in the latest figures.

Location of post offices

Over the last decade, London has seen the most growth in the number of post offices, at 9.3%, and Scotland has seen the greatest fall, at 8.3%.

Post offices in each constituency

A full list of post offices by constituency is made available to the Library by the Post Office each year. These lists are copyrighted to the Post Office and the Library is only able to provide them to Members and their staff.

A table with the number of post offices by constituency – post offices by constituency – is available to parliamentary users via SharePoint.

Further information

A data file attached at the top of this page gives trend data for overall numbers of post offices, numbers by contract type, numbers by urban and rural split and numbers by UK country and region.