National Knife Crime Centre

The following information is provided by the Office for National Statistics, using data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) and official statistics using data from police recorded crime. 

ONS data for year ending September 2025 (data released July 2026)

• Knife-enabled crime recorded by the police decreased by 8% in year ending (YE) March 2026 (to 48,774 offences), compared with YE March 2025 (53,096 offences). Levels remained 12% lower than YE March 2020 (55,170 offences).
• Most knife-enabled crimes were assault with injury and assault with intent to cause serious harm (44%) and robbery (39%) offences.
• Fewer than 1% of knife-enabled crimes were homicide offences (0.4%).
• Most knife-enabled crime takes place in metropolitan areas across England and Wales, with 28% of all offences recorded by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), 8% by West Midlands Police, and 6% by Greater Manchester Police.
• The MPS recorded a 15% decrease in knife-enabled crime compared with the previous year (to 13,806 offences), West Midlands police a 15% decrease (to 3,790 offences), and Greater Manchester Police a 17% decrease (to 2,855 offences).
• The latest provisional admissions data for NHS hospitals in England and Wales showed a 5% decrease in the number of admissions for assault by a sharp object in YE March 2026 (to 3,337 admissions), compared with YE March 2025 (3,523 admissions).
• The police recorded a 7% decrease in homicide offences (499 from 539) in YE March 2025. This decrease in homicide was mainly because of a 14% fall in knife or sharp instrument homicides to 176 offences compared with the previous year (204 offences). Using broadly comparable data from the Home Office Homicide Index, this is the lowest number of knife or sharp instrument homicides since YE March 1991 (see Table A15 in Crime in England and Wales: Annual supplementary tables.

Sceptre is policing's approach to tackling knife crime. 

While seizing knives and making arrests is important, this is only a part of the solution and tackling knife crime requires a wide-reaching multiagency appraoch. 

Our approach includes:

• Stopping the sale and supply of knives solely intended to harm, along with supply to young people. While the the online market remains a key focus of the NKCC's activity, policing also remain focused on traditional  ‘bricks and mortar’ retailers with test purchases and retailer engagement central to operational activity.
• Identifying current and potential knife carriers
• Understanding the reasons behind carrying a knife and how we can influence this
• Safeguarding and supporting communities
• Working with partners to signpost to and support intervention/diversion work.

Each year, two Sceptre weeks are held, bringing together all police forces in a concerted effort to highlight ongoing work to tackle knife crime.

One of the NKCC's priorities is to tackle the illicit sale of knives, principally through ‘grey market’ sellers – where individuals buy knives in bulk to sell across social media channels and peer networks, circumventing legislation on marketing of knives, by-passing age restrictions and selling to children. 

Op Obex tackles the retailers and organisations who supply the grey market, those who are upstream of the individuals selling knives on social media platforms.

The NKCC is working with a European retailer which was found to be selling both legal and prohibited knives to the UK. The seller responsibly took the decision to stop selling all knives to the UK market and has cooperated fully with the NKCC. They supplied sales data to policing which the NKCC team analysed and developed into intelligence packages for police forces, leading them to a number of individuals selling knives on social media.

In addition to the work which the centre will carry out, the national knife crime working group has worked with government to provide the following legislative changes:

• Enable the police to seize, retain and destroy knives held in private when they are lawfully on private property and have reasonable grounds to suspect the item(s) will likely be used in connection with unlawful violence.
• Increase the maximum penalty, from six months’ imprisonment to two years’ imprisonment, for the offences of private possession, importation, manufacture, sale or supply of prohibited offensive weapons and knives and of selling knives to those under 18
• Introduce a new offence of possession of a knife or offensive weapon in public or private with intent to use unlawful violence. The offence will carry a maximum penalty of four years’ imprisonment.
• The ban of ‘zombie-style’ knives and machetes that are clearly designed to intimidate and cause harm, rather than serve any practical purpose, which came into force in 2024 supports policing in stopping their manufacture and overall availability.
• The ninja sword ban came into force on 1 August 2025 as part of ‘Ronan’s Law’* following a surrender scheme for these weapons and extended surrender scheme which saw nearly 60,000 knives removed from communities.
• Policing continues to work in close partnership with the Home Office, retailers, tech companies and the third sector to find ways we can bring meaningful, long-term change that will make our streets safer

*Ronan's Law is UK legislation that includes banning specific "ninja swords" and implementing stricter regulations on online knife sales. The law was passed in memory of 16-year-old Ronan Kanda, who was murdered with a ninja sword in 2022, and is designed to combat knife crime.