We have developed and validated the eight variable 4C Mortality Score in a UK prospective cohort study of 57 824 patients admitted to hospital with covid-19. The 4C Mortality Score uses patient demographics, clinical observations, and blood parameters that are commonly available at the time of hospital admission and can accurately characterise the population of patients at high risk of death in hospital. The score compared favourably with other models, including best-in-class machine learning techniques, and showed consistent performance across the validation cohorts, including good clinical utility in a decision curve analysis.