A team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that for all cancers combined the ten year survival rose by 11% in the past decade and five-year survival rates increased from 39.7% to 49.6% over the same period.
But survival ranges from just 2.5% for pancreatic cancer to 95% for testicular cancer.
Two-thirds of patients with breast cancer are alive 20 years after diagnosis but there has been no improvement in survival for lung cancer.
Professor Michel Coleman who led the study said within the figures there were success stories and disappointments.
"We don't generally use an overall survival figure for cancer, partly because it is not a helpful number to individual cancer patients anxious to know their own chances.
"But since the new goals relate to cancer as a whole, we feel it is important to define a simple baseline for watching progress."
Cancer Research UK want three-quarters of people in the UK to know how to reduce their risk of cancer by 2020.
They also want two-thirds of cancers to be diagnosed at an early stage when the cancer can be successfully treated.
And if survival rates in the poorest communities was brought into line with that in the richest communities, more than 17,000 deaths could be avoided every year.
Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK's chief executive, said: "Our goals are as broad as they are ambitious.
"They recognise the importance of furthering our fundamental biological understanding of cancer while at the same time taking that knowledge out of the lab and turning it into new treatments."
He said the UK came out top in Europe for direct cancer research funding.
"We read a lot of negative stories about the UK's place in Europe so it's encouraging these figures show such dramatic improvements in cancer survival."
National cancer director Professor Mike Richards said: "While research charities, universities, industry and the NHS have always worked together, those collaborations have never been stronger than they are today.
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"This means we are getting more potential treatments out of the lab and into the clinic, and we are enrolling more patients than ever into clinical trials."
"The Department of Health welcomes these goals because they will spur everyone in the field to work to further improve the prospects of cancer patients, especially those with types of cancer for which outcomes sadly remain poor."
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