Estimates for UK immigration, emigration and net migration, year ending June 2012 to year ending December 2024. These are official statistics in development. To access the most up-to-date data for each time period, please use the most recently published dataset.

This release replaces the previous annual and quarterly publications Control of Immigration Statistics and the annual British Citizenship, following a public consultation. Each topic now has its own entry, links to these related reports can be found under the "additional links" section. There are a number of different measures that can be used to monitor numbers of people coming to the United Kingdom for study.

For those students who are subject to immigration control, administrative information is available on student visas and visa extensions, as well as records of students admitted. The International Passenger Survey (IPS), run by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), provides estimates of all students arriving in the UK, with the ONS migration statistics focussing on those who intend to stay for a year or more. Research into students has also been published, for example Migrant Journey Analysis that involved linking records to give a more complete picture as to what happened to a group of students over a five year period.

These various statistics and research can appear to give different pictures of student immigration. Often this is because the latest data for different measures cover different time periods. In addition, they also count different aspects of the immigration process, with some showing intentions or permissions, whilst others show actual events.

UK residents by broad country of birth and citizenship groups, broken down by UK country, local authority, unitary authority, metropolitan and London boroughs, and counties. Estimates from the Annual Population Survey.

This release replaces the previous annual and quarterly publications Control of Immigration Statistics and the annual British Citizenship, following a public consultation. Each topic now has its own entry, links to these related reports can be found under the "additional links" section. The statistics in this topic briefing cover: applications, issues and refusals of entry clearance visas; and non-asylum passengers initially refused entry at ports. Prior to travel to the United Kingdom, a person may be required to apply for and be issued with an entry clearance visa, depending on their nationality, purpose of visit and intended length of stay. On arrival at UK ports or a juxtaposed control in France or Belgium, before being admitted to the country, all individuals have to satisfy a Border Force Officer that they have the right to enter the country. From Q2 2014 this dataset has been split into two sections: Vol 1 is now the Immigration Statistics: Sponsorship data tables, and Vol 2, 3 and 4 are now the Immigration Statistics: Entry clearance visas granted outside the UK

This table contains 25 series, with data for years 1955 - 2013 (not all combinations necessarily have data for all years). This table contains data described by the following dimensions (Not all combinations are available): Geography (1 items: Canada ...) Last permanent residence (25 items: Total immigrants; France; Great Britain; Total Europe ...).

The 2002 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics is a compendium of tables that provide data on foreign nationals who are granted lawful permanent residence (i.e., immigrants who receive a “green card”), admitted as temporary nonimmigrants, granted asylum or refugee status, or are naturalized. The Yearbook also presents data on immigration enforcement actions, including apprehensions and arrests, removals, and returns.

Introduction

The 2023 mid-year estimate (MYE) is the current official estimate of the population for local authorities in England and Wales. Estimates are produced annually by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the 2023 MYE was published on 15 July 2024.

Comparison to previous MYE data

The previous MYE series (for the period 2012-2020) starts with the 2011 census estimate. Each subsequent year’s population is calculated by adding estimates of births, deaths and migration to the previous year’s population. The 2021 MYE represents a break in this series as it uses the 2021 census as its base.

The ONS revised the 2012-2020 MYE series to bring it in line with the 2021 MYE, so that comparisons could be made between between this series and the previous series. The values plotted on the chart are the revised values of the previously published estimates for 2011 to 2022, together with the estimates for 2023.

Key Points

• London’s mid-2023 population was 8.945 million
• London’s population increased by 76,300 persons compared to the previous mid-year value
• Components of change were as follows:
• 105,100 births and 53,500 deaths (natural change of 51,600)
• Net domestic migration was an outflow of 129,200
• Net international migration was an inflow of 154,100

Population Change

London’s 2023 population was 8,945,310. The first chart below shows the 2023 MYE in the context of previous estimates. There is an uptick after a temporary decrease in population which we attribute to the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://cdn.datapress.cloud/london/img/dataset/763802e7-af17-4b77-995d-44c494fb68af/2025-06-09T20%3A56%3A29/666cd938678c5361c953cb608e532416.webp" width="1152" alt="Embedded Image" />

Components of Change

Births, deaths and migration form the components of population change.

The 2023 MYE value for births was 4% lower than that in 2022, and for deaths 3% higher. The consequent value for natural change (births - deaths) was 10% lower than in 2022.

At -129,000, the value for domestic migration (migration within the UK) was nearly 3% higher than the 2022 value, so still significantly lower than the peak net outflow during the COVID-19 pandemic of -186,000. An outflow of domestic migrants from London is normal and this has been the case each year for the last two decades. This flow is partly because many international in-migrants initially settle in London before moving out to other parts of the UK. The second move in this sequence is counted as a domestic migration.

There has been a marked change in immigration since 2021. This can be attributed to the end of free movement for EU nationals, easing of travel restrictions following the COVID 19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine. At over 150,000, the 2023 MYE value for London’s net international migration was more than 18% higher than 2022, and represents a considerable increase from 78,000 in 2021.

https://cdn.datapress.cloud/london/img/dataset/763802e7-af17-4b77-995d-44c494fb68af/2025-06-09T20%3A56%3A29/cb537d44954e11f7f7b7e2189ae74629.webp" width="1152" alt="Embedded Image" />

Age structure of the population

https://cdn.datapress.cloud/london/img/dataset/763802e7-af17-4b77-995d-44c494fb68af/2025-06-09T20%3A56%3A29/6d4cf55b96888dbc3aacfc1de5c664ec.webp" width="1152" alt="Embedded Image" />

Future Updates

The release of the next mid-year estimates is expected in July 2025.

The full ONS mid-year population estimates release and back series can be found on the ONS website: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates.

For information relating to London’s population see the demography pages of the London Datastore: https://data.london.gov.uk/demography/ or email demography@london.gov.uk.

An in-depth review of the available evidence for population change in London since the start of the coronavirus pandemic has been produced by GLA Demography: https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/population-change-in-london-during-the-pandemic.

The UK's decision to leave the EU has necessitated a wholesale rethink of UK immigration policy with the ending of free movement of workers. The motivations for this work then were to examine the immigration/worker protection boundary from a number of perspectives, with particular emphasis on the legal dimension. While understanding the developing EU and domestic (macro) perspective our aims at a micro level were to understand the legal problems EU citizens in low paid work in the UK were facing and how they resolve those problems. These legal problems were at times exacerbated by Brexit, particularly with the advent of the new digital EUSS (EU Settlement Scheme)- our research followed this in real time and recorded issues. One of our key findings and covered by the book published as a result of the dataset here is that of Pragmatic Law and the role of everyday community advice in the wider legal advice eco-system. This is an element of legal advice which to date had been little researched. Another key outcome was the contribution to literature on both EU free movement and citizenship studies, particularly in the context of vulnerable EU citizens.

These workbooks contain the supporting data that sits behind GLA Economics Current Issues Notes 58 and 59.

The Government recently set out plans for a ‘skills-based’ immigration system post-Brexit. To inform debate, GLA Economics has produced two Current Issues Notes aimed at understanding which areas of London’s labour market are likely to be most affected by the proposals.

• Current Issues Note 58: Which occupations may be most affected by the new £30,000 minimum salary and RQF3+ skills threshold proposals? Who works in these roles? How does the list of affected occupations change as the salary threshold is reduced towards £21,000?
• Current Issues Note 59: In which occupations is the greatest disruption most likely from the proposed £30,000 minimum salary and RQF3+ skills threshold proposals?

Notes:

These workbook bring together supporting data from the Office for National Statistic (ONS) that sits behind this work; for reference purposes, they also set out some of the modelled estimates used in our analysis. Please be aware: these modelled estimates have been produced with restrictions on data availability and are based on a number of simplifying assumptions.

Our approach to data imputation is set out in detail in Current Issues Notes 58 and 59 and described only briefly in these workbooks. For further information users are advised to consult the notes provided in each workbook and the original ONS data publications.

Dataset population: All usual residents who were living at a different address one year ago

Age

Age is derived from the date of birth question and is a person's age at their last birthday, at 27 March 2011. Dates of birth that imply an age over 115 are treated as invalid and the person's age is imputed. Infants less than one year old are classified as 0 years of age.

Sex

Sex is the classification of a person as either male or female.

Geographies of origin areas:

• UK Local Authorities (merged) 2011
• 2011 all SMS additional residence codes

Geographies of destination areas:

• UK Local Authorities (merged) 2011

N.B. Area of residence 1 year ago code OD0000009 signifies that address one year ago was 'Outside UK'.

In this article, we analyze anti- and pro-immigrant attitudes expressed following the Essex Lorry Deaths tragedy in October 2019 in Britain, in which 39 Vietnamese immigrants died in a sealed lorry truck on their way to their destination. We apply Structural Topic Modeling, an automated text analysis method, to a Twitter dataset (N = 4,376), to understand public responses to the Lorry Deaths incident. We find that Twitter users' posts were organized into two themes regarding attitudes toward immigrants: (1) migration narratives, stereotypes, and victim identities, and (2) border control. Within each theme, both pro- and anti-immigration attitudes were expressed. Pro-immigration posts reflected counter-narratives that challenged the mainstream media's coverage of the incident and critiqued the militarization of borders and the criminalization of immigration. Anti-immigration posts ranged from reproducing stereotypes about Vietnamese immigrants to explicitly blaming the victims themselves or their families for the deaths. This study demonstrates the uses and limitations of using Twitter for public opinion research by offering a nuanced analysis of how pro-and anti-immigration attitudes are discussed in response to a tragic event. Our research also contributes to a growing literature on public opinion about an often-forgotten immigrant group in the UK, the Vietnamese.