In 2021, there were approximately ******* Indian residents living in London, the most of any foreign nationality. Nigerian nationals numbered *******, and were the second most common nationality in this year.

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.

In 2024, approximately 948,000 million people migrated to the United Kingdom, while 517,000 people migrated from the UK, resulting in a net migration figure of 431,000. There have consistently been more people migrating to the United Kingdom than leaving it since 1993 when the net migration figure was negative 1,000. Although migration from the European Union has declined since the Brexit vote of 2016, migration from non-EU countries accelerated rapidly from 2021 onwards. In the year to June 2023, 968,000 people from non-EU countries migrated to the UK, compared with 129,000 from EU member states. Immigration and the 2024 election Since late 2022, immigration, along with the economy and healthcare, has consistently been seen by UK voters as one of the top issues facing the country. Despite a pledge to deter irregular migration via small boats, and controversial plans to send asylum applicants to Rwanda while their claims are being processed, Rishi Sunak's Conservative government lost the trust of the public on this issue. On the eve of the last election, 20 percent of Britons thought the Labour Party would be the best party to handle immigration, compared with 13 percent who thought the Conservatives would handle it better. Sunak and the Conservatives went on to lose this election, suffering their worst defeat in modern elections. Historical context of migration The first humans who arrived in the British Isles, were followed by acts of conquest and settlement from Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans. In the early modern period, there were also significant waves of migration from people fleeing religious or political persecution, such as the French Huguenots. More recently, large numbers of people also left Britain. Between 1820 and 1957, for example, around 4.5 million people migrated from Britain to America. After World War Two, immigration from Britain's colonies and former colonies was encouraged to meet labour demands. A key group that migrated from the Caribbean between the late 1940s and early 1970s became known as the Windrush generation, named after one of the ships that brought the arrivals to Britain.

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.

On 17th November 2011 the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as part of their Migration Statistics Improvement Programme (MSIP) released their improved methodology for producing local authority long-term migration estimates within England and Wales.

This Update presents a brief overview of the improved migration methodology adopted by the ONS in respect to its impact on migration and population estimates.

• Improvements to the immigration distributional methodology has impacted on both the estimated number of migrants and total population between 2006 and 2010.

• The number of immigrants in London as a result is estimated to have risen by 129.8 thousand (2006 to 2010) compared to previous figures.

• Ten London boroughs are in the top 20 local authorities for upward indicative revisions in their population estimates.

Open the report here

or Download the data here

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Tweets related to immigration made by Breitbart London between February 2014 and October 2022.

In 2020/21 there were approximately 696,000 Polish nationals living in the United Kingdom, the highest non-British population at this time. Indian and Irish were the joint second-largest nationalities at approximately 370,000 people.

In the twelve months to December 2024, approximately 948,000 people migrated to the United Kingdom, while 517,000 emigrated away from the country, resulting in a net migration figure of 431,000.

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.

These are the summaries of the interviews and the preliminary codes and themes that were created for this project.

In the first quarter of 2025, approximately 82.4 percent of people born in the European Union but living in the UK were employed, compared with 74.6 percent for the UK-born population, and 74.1 percent for people outside the EU and UK. Since 2006, the employment rate for people born in the EU has consistently been higher than UK nationals and non-EU nationals.

In this blog, Erene Kaptani and Marie Gillespie report on how undocumented Londoners express their sense of belonging at an online event, “I’m a Londoner,” that took place in July 2021 as part of the London Assembly’s Festival of Ideas. The blog represents the testimonies of undocumented Londoners in their own words, offering insights into their often invisible lives.

Images are screenshots taken during the online event, used with permission.

This material is part of the Covid Chronicles from the Margins project, funded by The Open University and The Hague. The project aims to highlight the impact of the pandemic on refugees, asylum seekers & undocumented migrants.

This item can be found on our website, here: https://cov19chronicles.com/i-am-a-londoner/

This is a .csv file containing an export obtained from the Altmetric Explorer containing metadata including links and altmetrics of 1,095 articles with the keyword 'immigrants’ mentioned at least once in the sources tracked by Altmetric in the past 1 year. This is the result of a 'dumb search' for the keyword "immigrants" in all articles mentioned across all sources tracked by Altmetric during the past 1 year. Therefore data in the dataset will require manual refining depending on your interests. (For example the term can be used in relation to animals, not humans). The dataset is also likely to require deduplication. This dataset is shared as the British Prime Minister David Cameron has been reported warning that "illegal immigrants would be removed from the UK". This dataset is shared as a .csv file as a means to offer a bibliographic collection of academic/scientific articles including the keyword "immigrants" and to have a fixed data point documenting the articles with the keyword 'immigrants' tracked by Altmetric and their metrics as of 30 July 2015 at around 9:30 AM BST. The links and metrics included in the dataset were correct at the time of exporting the report. Metrics are expected to change in reports obtained at later dates. Hopefully the sharing of this dataset can encourage research into which of these articles about immigration are available open access and which ones are not, as well as the tracking of future changes in their metrics. With gratitude to Altmetric for enabling access to the data.

This dataset is about books. It has 1 row and is filtered where the book is Jewish immigrant entrepreneurship in New York and London, 1880-1914 : enterprise and culture. It features 7 columns including author, publication date, language, and book publisher.

FOCUSON**LONDON**2011:**LABOUR**MARKET:**BEYOND**HEADLINES

In 2009, the overall proportion of the London working-age population who were in work was around two percentage points below the UK figure but this does not begin to tell the story of London’s labour market. London is a complex city of extremes with significant differences between various sub-groups of population. It is important to understand which groups are doing well and those doing poorly.

This report, authored by Gareth Piggott in the Intelligence Unit, aims to shed light on some of the complexities of London’s labour market, beyond headline findings. It looks at employment rates and pay for different groups within the population and compares London with other regions and the UK average.

REPORT:

Read the report in PDF format.

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PRESENTATION:

What factors influence a Londoner’s pay and probability of employment? This interactive presentation finds the answer to this question.

View the Labour Market Beyond Headlines presentation on Prezi

MOTION CHART:

This motion chart shows how the relationship, between a selection of labour market related indicators at borough level, changes over time.

Motion chart

MAP:

These interactive borough maps help to geographically present a range of labour market data within London.

Interactive Maps

DATA:

All the data contained within the Labour Market: Beyond Headlines report as well as the data used to create the charts and maps can be accessed in this spreadsheet.

FACTS:

Some interesting facts from the data…

● Five boroughs with the highest employment rates among Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups in 2009:

1. Bromley – 85 per cent
2. Sutton – 81 per cent
3. Havering – 78 per cent
4. Richmond – 76 per cent
5. Harrow – 75 per cent

-31. Haringey – 53 per cent

-32. Tower Hamlets – 52 per cent

● Five boroughs with the highest rate of immigrants registering for a national insurance number in 2009/10 (per 10,000 residents):

1. Newham – 1,779
2. Brent – 1,142
3. Tower Hamlets - 784
4. Waltham Forest - 664
5. Ealing - 648

-32. Bromley - 90

-33. Havering - 82

● Five boroughs with the highest percentage of residents working part-time:

1. Sutton – 21 per cent
2. Bexley – 20 per cent
3. Hillingdon – 17 per cent
4. Bromley – 17 per cent
5. Harrow – 16 per cent

-31. Tower Hamlets – 10 per cent

-32. Westminster – 10 per cent

This statistic shows the last country of residence given by passengers of the HMT Empire Windrush which docked at Tilbury near London on 21 June 1948. As the statistic illustrates, most of the passengers disembarking at London gave Jamaica as their last country of residence. Post-war migration from the Caribbean to Britain is heavily associated with this particular journey, giving rise to the term 'Windrush generation'.

The research collected qualitative interview data from 55 undocumented migrants and 24 ethnic enclave employers from Bangladeshi, Chinese, Turkish (including Kurds from Turkey and Northern Cypriots) communities who were living in London. The three groups were selected for their sizeable presence among London’s minority ethnic communities but also their migration histories, reasons for migration and pathways to the UK have been different, providing the variance of experiences that we were looking for in the study. The fieldwork took place between February 2012 and April 2013.

Interviews with undocumented migrants:

Of the 55 interviews carried out, 20 interviews were with undocumented migrants from China, 20 with undocumented migrants from Turkey (including Kurds and Northern Cypriots) people and 15 with undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.

Trained interviewers, with relevant community language skills, carried out the interviews with undocumented migrants in first languages and translated, transcribed and anonymised the transcripts. The project team carried out detailed training about the project, in-depth interviewing, translations and transcriptions, networking and sampling and research ethics.

A number of starting points into networks were used to identify interviewees as a way of ensuring greater diversity than would have been the case if we had drawn from fewer networks, as networks are often quite homogeneous.

Indicative quotas to obtain different social and demographic profiles that were relevant for the research questions were used to guide the fieldwork. These included quotas for sex, length of time in the UK and place of employment, either within or outside of the ethnic enclave. In the final sample of undocumented migrants, 40 were men and 15 were women reflecting the greater difficulties we had locating women who were living as undocumented migrants due, in part, to the mores hidden nature of their experiences within domestic settings.

Interviews with Employers:

Interviews were carried out with 24 employers. The final sample of employers comprised 7 Bangladeshi, 8 Chinese and 9 Turkish entrepreneurs of whom 6 were Kurds from Turkey, 2 were Turkish and 1 was from Northern Cyprus. Five interviewees were female and 19 were male. With the exception of one Bangladeshi heritage woman who ran a family owned business, all the other employers interviewed were migrants born outside of Britain. Length of time in Britain ranged from 9 years to over 40 years.

The interviews were carried out in English by the university based research team. Employers were identified for interview using chain referral methods starting at multiple access points for greater sample heterogeneity. Initial points of access included cold calling at businesses, gatekeepers from community organisations and through the networks of the community researchers. Our success at finding employers willing to be interviewed was due in part to the timing of the fieldwork, which took place after most of the interviews with undocumented migrants had been carried out and so we were able to effectively utilise some of the networks that had been developed for that part of the research.

An asynchronous internet focus group, conducted through an email group was carried out with seven employer participants.

This research explores the labour market experiences of undocumented migrants from Bangladesh, China and Turkey (including Kurds) living and working in London and the motivations of minority ethnic entrepreneurs employing people from these three groups. The study examines the ways in which undocumented migrants and their employers use social networks and other resources in relation to job seeking and work and how working relationships operate within frameworks of ethnicity, class and gender. Any additional disadvantages that might exist as a consequence of imbalanced power relationships due to immigration status and the extent to which employment relationships within ethnic enclave employment replicate or differ from employment relationships in general are examined. We are concerned to understand the ways in which being undocumented intersects with employment experiences and decision making about work and recruitment from both the perspectives of migrants and their employers, while engaging critically with theories of social capital. The research is based on in-depth interviews with 60 undocumented migrants, male and female, 30 working inside ethnic enclaves and 30 outside and with 24 minority ethnic employers running enclave businesses. Two asynchronous Internet focus groups with employers of undocumented migrants will be conducted to obtain a collective employer perspective.

The French constitute a significant and growing migrant population in the UK, and in particular, London. With a notable concentration employed in highly-skilled occupations, they have been overlooked in migration research which tends to focus on more marginalised and disadvantaged migrant labour. This project will explore the migratory, occupational and settlement careers of highly-skilled French professionals working in London’s financial and business sectors, and contribute to our understanding of their economic, social and cultural role. In examining the interplay of factors shaping migration, occupation and settlement decision-making in this context, the project will inform our understanding of the dynamics of intra-European mobility amongst the highly skilled, and of its policy implications at local, regional, national and EU levels. The study is informed by a qualitative methodology, in the form of semi-structured interviews and focus groups, designed to capture the rich personal narratives of this migrant population’s experiences. The data aims to capture the complexity and diversity of this population through the incorporation of variables such as gender, age, ethnicity, length of residence in London, employment status and family circumstances.

Abstract: Adopting a Complex perspective to language, this study explores the correlation between length of residence (LOR) in London and the production of word-initial English voiceless stops by late south Brazilian bilinguals who have an integrative motivation towards the host language and culture. To this end, 12 immigrants are compared to 10 standard southern British English monolinguals. Acoustic analysis of VOT duration is reported. Results demonstrated that immigrants’ VOT values for English are positively correlated with LOR. Bilinguals with the longest LOR revealed a production of English VOT within the range expected for the controls. These findings can be interpreted as evidence for language as a Complex Adaptive System, and for the hypothesis that the neuroplasticity and the cognitive mechanisms for language development remain intact during the lifespan.