Adoptions in Scotland fell in 2025, from 369 to 340. However, the proportion of those to same-gender couples remained static at 1 in 8.

Of the 42 adoptions in the country to same-gender couples, 28 were to male couples and 14 to female couples. While twice as many adoptions were to male than female couples, it’s a noticeable improvement on the 2024 figures.

In 2024, five times more adoptions in Scotland were to male couples than female couples.

These figures show that Scotland remains as the third best performing UK country at engaging LGBTQ+ people with adoption. Based on the most recent statistics, 1 in 5 adoptions in England and Wales were to same-gender couples. Scotland follows next with 1 in 8 adoptions to same-gender couples. Northern Ireland is the poorest performing region of the UK, with 1 in 11 adoptions being to same-gender couples.

In Scotland – as with all UK countries – official figures undercount LGBTQ+ people’s engagement with adoption. This is because the statistics focus on the composition of the adoptive family; whether the adoptive parent/s are one man, one woman, two men, two women or one man and one woman.

As a result, it’s impossible to know how many single adoptive parents are LGBTQ+. Similarly, bisexual adoptive parents in different gender relationships are invisible in the official statistics, as are trans people in different gender relationships.

The current statistics for each UK region:

	England [2024/25]	Scotland [2025]	Wales [2024/25]	Northern Ireland [2024/25]
Total number of adoptions	3040	340	210	96
Total number of adoptions to male couples	410	28	25	Not released
Total number of adoptions to female couples	200	14	15	Not released
Total number of adoptions to same-gender couples	610	42	40	“Some 9% [of adopters in Northern Ireland this year] were same sex couples who were married, in a civil partnership or unmarried.”
Proportion of adoptions to same-gender couples	1 in 5	1 in 8	1 in 5	1 in 11

Further reading:

England

Scotland

Wales

Northern Ireland