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.

This report was released in September 2010. However, recent demographic data is available on the datastore - you may find other datasets on the Datastore useful such as: GLA Population Projections, National Insurance Number Registrations of Overseas Nationals, Births by Birthplace of Mother, Births and Fertility Rates, Office for National Statistics (ONS) Population Estimates

FOCUSONLONDON2010:POPULATIONANDMIGRATION

London is the United Kingdom’s only city region. Its population of 7.75 million is 12.5 per cent of the UK population living on just 0.6 per cent of the land area. London’s average population density is over 4,900 persons per square kilometre, this is ten times that of the second most densely populated region.

Between 2001 and 2009 London’s population grew by over 430 thousand, more than any other region, accounting for over 16 per cent of the UK increase.

This report discusses in detail the population of London including Population Age Structure, Fertility and Mortality, Internal Migration, International Migration, Population Turnover and Churn, and Demographic Projections.

Population and Migration report is the first release of the Focus on London 2010-12 series. Reports on themes such as Income, Poverty, Labour Market, Skills, Health, and Housing are also available.

REPORT:

Read the full report in PDF format.

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PRESENTATION:

To access an interactive presentation about population changes in London click the link to see it on Prezi.com

DATA:

To access a spreadsheet with all the data from the Population and Migration report click on the image below.

Report data

MAP:

To enter an interactive map showing a number of indicators discussed in the Population and Migration report click on the image below.

Interactive Maps

FACTS:

● Top five boroughs for babies born per 10,000 population in 2008-09:

1. Newham – 244.4
2. Barking and Dagenham – 209.3
3. Hackney – 205.7
4. Waltham Forest – 202.7
5. Greenwich – 196.2

-32. Havering – 116.8

-33. City of London – 47.0

● In 2009, Barnet overtook Croydon as the most populous London borough. Prior to this Croydon had been the largest since 1966

● Population per hectare of land used for Domestic building and gardens is highest in Tower Hamlets

● In 2008-09, natural change (births minus deaths) led to 78,000 more Londoners compared with only 8,000 due to migration. read more about this or click play on the chart below to reveal how regional components of populations change have altered over time.

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.

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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.

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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.

In the year to June 2025, approximately 898,000 people migrated to the United Kingdom, while 693,000 people migrated from the country, resulting in a net migration figure of 204,000. There have consistently been more people migrating to the United Kingdom than leaving it since 1993 when approximately 1,000 more people left the country than arrived. 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.

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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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.

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 Excel tool enables you to interrogate data annual data between 2004 and 2016 at London borough level released by the Office for National Statistics in the Local Area Migration Indicators suite (LAMI). Data includes: Long-term international migration Internal migration new migrant GP registrations Births National Insurance number registrations to overseas nationals

Graph and download economic data for Net County-to-County Migration Flow (5-year estimate) for New London County, CT (DISCONTINUED) (NETMIGNACS009011) from 2009 to 2020 about New London County, CT; Norwich; migration; flow; CT; Net; 5-year; and population.

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.

These modelled annual population estimates were created for use the GLA's population projections.

They are intended to provide a consistent series of annual population and components of change between census years with all change accounted for by the standard components of change (births, deaths, and migration).

The official mid-year population estimates published by ONS are available here.

The original detailed internal migration data published by ONS is available here.

An overview of the general approach used to create these estimates is described in this presentation delivered at the 2022 BSPS conference.

* 17 April 2023 code for producing the modelled 2021 detailed internal migration flows is now available on Github

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.

The London Borough Profiles help paint a general picture of an area by presenting a range of headline indicator data in both spreadsheet and map form to help show statistics covering demographic, economic, social and environmental datasets for each borough, alongside relevant comparator areas. The London Borough Atlas does the same but provides further detailed breakdowns and time-series data for each borough. The full datasets and more information for each of the indicators are usually available on the London Datastore. A link to each of the datasets is contained in the spreadsheet and map.

London Borough Profiles

On opening the Microsoft Excel version, a simple drop down box allows you to choose which borough profile you are interested in. Selecting this will display data for that borough, plus either Inner or Outer London, London and a national comparator (usually England where data is available). To see the full set of data for all 33 local authorities in London plus the comparator areas in Excel, click the 'Data' worksheet. A chart and a map are also available to help visualise the data for all boroughs (macros must be enabled for the Excel map to function). The data is set out across 11 themes covering most of the key indicators relating to demographic, economic, social and environmental data. Sources are provided in the spreadsheet. Notes about the indicator are provided in comment boxes attached to the indicator names. For a geographical and bar chart representation of the profile data, choose the InstantAtlas version. Choose indicators from the left hand side. Click on the comparators to make them appear on the chart and map. Sources, links to data, and notes are all contained in the box in the bottom right hand corner.

These profiles include data relating to: Population, Households (census), Demographics, Migrant population, Ethnicity, Language, Employment, NEET, DWP Benefits (client group), Housing Benefit, Qualifications, Earnings, Volunteering, Jobs density, Business Survival, Crime, Fires, House prices, New homes, Tenure, Greenspace, Recycling, Carbon Emissions, Cars, Public Transport Accessibility (PTAL), Indices of Multiple Deprivation, GCSE results, Children looked after, Children in out-of-work families, Life Expectancy, Teenage conceptions, Happiness levels, Political control, and Election turnout.

London Borough Atlas

To access even more data at local authority level, use the London Borough Atlas. It contains data about the same topics as the profiles but provides further detailed breakdowns and time-series data for each borough. There is also an InstantAtlas version available.

The London boroughs are: City of London, Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth, Westminster. You may also find our small area profiles useful - Ward, LSOA, and "/dataset/msoa-atlas">MS

The latest population figures produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 28 June 2018 show that an estimated 534,800 people live in Bradford District – an increase of 2,300 people (0.4%) since the previous year.

Bradford District is the fifth largest metropolitan district (in terms of population) in England, after Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield and Manchester although the District’s population growth is lower than other major cities.

The increase in the District’s population is largely due to “natural change”- there have been around 3,300 more births than deaths, although this has been balanced by a larger number of people leaving Bradford to live in other parts of the UK than coming to live here and a lower number of international migrants. In 2016/17 the net internal migration was -2,700 and the net international migration was 1,700.

A large proportion of Bradford’s population is dominated by the younger age groups. More than one-quarter (29%) of the District’s population is aged less than 20 and nearly seven in ten people are aged less than 50. Bradford has the highest percentage of the under 16 population in England after the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, Slough Borough Council and Luton Borough Council.

The population of Bradford is ethnically diverse. The largest proportion of the district’s population (63.9%) identifies themselves as White British. The district has the largest proportion of people of Pakistani ethnic origin (20.3%) in England.

The largest religious group in Bradford is Christian (45.9% of the population). Nearly one quarter of the population (24.7%) are Muslim. Just over one fifth of the district’s population (20.7%) stated that they had no religion.

There are 216,813 households in the Bradford district. Most households own their own home (29.3% outright and 35.7% with a mortgage). The percentage of privately rented households is 18.1%. 29.6% of households were single person households.

Information from the Annual Population Survey in December 2017 found that Bradford has 228,100 people aged 16-64 in employment. At 68% this is significantly lower than the national rate (74.9%). 91,100 (around 1 in 3 people) aged 16-64, are not in work. The claimant count rate is 2.9% which is higher than the regional and national averages.

Skill levels are improving with 26.5% of 16 to 74 year olds educated to degree level. 18% of the district’s employed residents work in retail/wholesale. The percentage of people working in manufacturing has continued to decrease from 13.4% in 2009 to 11.9% in 2016. This is still higher than the average for Great Britain (8.1%).

Cultural psychologists have shown that people from Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic (WEIRD) countries often exhibit different psychological processing to people from less-WEIRD countries. The former exhibit more individualistic and less collectivistic social orientation, and more analytic and less holistic cognition, than non-Westerners. Yet the mechanisms responsible for maintaining this cultural variation are unclear. Immigration is an ideal ‘natural experiment’ for uncovering such mechanisms. We used a battery of psychological measures previously shown to vary cross-culturally to compare the social orientation and cognitive style of 286 residents of East London from three cultural backgrounds: (i) 1st-generation British Bangladeshi immigrants; (ii) 2nd-generation British Bangladeshis raised in the UK to Bangladeshi-raised parents; and (iii) non-migrants whose parents were born and raised in the UK. Model comparison revealed that individualism and dispositional attribution, typical of Western societies, are driven primarily by horizontal cultural transmission (e.g. via mass media), with parents and other family members having little or no effect, while collectivism, social closeness and situational attribution were driven by a mix of vertical/oblique cultural transmission (e.g. via family contact) and horizontal cultural transmission. These individual-level transmission dynamics can explain hitherto puzzling population-level phenomena, such as the partial acculturation of 2nd-generation immigrants on measures such as collectivism (due to the mix of vertical and horizontal cultural transmission), or the observation in several countries of increasing individualism (which is transmitted horizontally and therefore rapidly) despite little corresponding change in collectivism (which is transmitted partly vertically and therefore more slowly). Further consideration of cultural transmission mechanisms, in conjunction with the study of migrant communities and model comparison statistics, can shed light on the persistence of, and changes in, culturally-variable psychological processes.

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Excel age range creator for GLA Projections data

This Excel based tool enables users to query the raw single year of age data so that any age range can easily be calculated without having to carry out often complex, and time consuming formulas that could also be open to human error. Each year the GLA demography team produce sets of population projections. On this page each of these datasets since 2009 can be accessed, though please remember that the older versions have been superceded. From 2012, data includes population estimates and projections between 2001 and 2041 for each borough plus Central London (Camden, City of London, Kensington & Chelsea, and Westminster), Rest of Inner Boroughs, Inner London, Outer London and Greater London.

The full raw data by single year of age (SYA) and gender are available as Datastore packages at the links below.

How to use the tool: Simply select the lower and upper age range for both males and females (starting in cell C3) and the spreadsheet will return the total population for the range.

Tip: You can copy and paste the boroughs you are interested in to another worksheet by clicking: Edit then Go To (or Control + G), then Special, and Visible cells only. Then simply copy and 'paste values' of the cells to a new location.

Warning: The ethnic group and ward files are large (around 35MB), and may take some time to download depending on your bandwidth.

Find out more about GLA population projections on the GLA Demographic Projections page

BOROUGH PROJECTIONS

GLA 2009 Round London Plan Population Projections (January 2010) (SUPERSEDED)

GLA 2009 Round (revised) London Plan Population Projections (August 2010) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2009 Round (revised) SHLAA Population Projections (August 2010) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2010 Round SHLAA Population Projections (February 2011) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2011 Round SHLAA Population Projections, High Fertility (December 2011) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2011 Round SHLAA Population Projections, Standard Fertility (January 2012) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2012 Round SHLAA Population Projections, (December 2012)(SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2012 Round Trend Based Population Projections, (December 2012) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2012 Round SHLAA Borough Projections incorporating DCLG 2011 household formation rates, (June 2013) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2013 Round Trend Based Population Projections - High (December 2013) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2013 Round Trend Based Population Projections - Central (December 2013) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2013 Round Trend Based Population Projections - Low (December 2013) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2013 Round SHLAA Based Population Projections (February 2014) (SUPERCEDED) Spreadsheet now includes national comparator data from ONS.

GLA 2013 Round SHLAA Based Capped Population Projections (March 2014) (SUPERCEDED) Spreadsheet includes national comparator data from ONS.

GLA 2014 Round Trend-based, Short-Term Migration Scenario Population Projections (April 2015) Spreadsheet includes national comparator data from ONS.

GLA 2014 Round Trend-based, Long-Term Migration Scenario Population Projections (April 2015) Spreadsheet includes national comparator data from ONS.

GLA 2014 Round SHLAA DCLG Based Long Term Migration Scenario Population Projections (April 2015) Spreadsheet includes national comparator data from ONS.

GLA 2014 Round SHLAA Capped Household Size Model Short Term Migration Scenario Population Projections (April 2015) Spreadsheet includes national comparator data from ONS. This is the recommended file to use.

WARD PROJECTIONS

GLA 2008 round (High) Ward Projections (March 2009) (SUPERSEDED)

GLA 2009 round (revised) London Plan Ward Projections (August 2010) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2010 round SHLAA Ward Projections (February 2011) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2011 round SHLAA Standard Ward Projections (January 2012) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2011 round SHLAA High Ward Projections (January 2012) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2012 round SHLAA based Ward Projections (March 2013) (XLS) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2012 round SHLAA Ward Projections (March 2013) (XLS) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2013 round SHLAA Ward Projections (March 2014) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2013 round SHLAA Capped Ward Projections (March 2014) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2014 round SHLAA Capped Household Size Model Short Term Migration Scenario Ward Projections (April 2015) This is the recommended file to use.

ETHNIC GROUP PROJECTIONS FOR LOCAL AUTHORITIES

GLA 2012 Round SHLAA Ethnic Group Borough Projections - Interim (May 2013) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2012 Round Trend Based Ethnic Group Borough Projections - Interim (May 2013) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2012 Round SHLAA Based Ethnic Group Borough Projections - Final (Nov 2013) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2012 Round Trend Based Ethnic Group Borough Projections - Final (Nov 2013) (SUPERCEDED)

GLA 2013 Round SHLAA Capped Ethnic Group Borough Projections (August 2014)

In the third quarter of 2025, approximately 81.1 percent of people born in the European Union but living in the UK were employed, compared with 74.7 percent for the UK-born population, and 74.8 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.

IMPORTANT NOTE: These projections have been superceded, please see https://data.london.gov.uk/demography/ for the latest GLA projections. For the 2014 round, two sets of ethnic group projections were produced: the first consistent with the published Long Term Migration trend-based population projection , and the second with the SHLAA-capped household size development-linked projections incorporating development trajectories derived from the 2013 Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment. These projections have been produced on the basis of ten aggregated ethnic groups and are consistent with the available results from the 2001 and 2011 Censuses. This data is also available to download in the custom-age tool. A Tableau visualisation of the SHLAA-capped (short-term migration variant) ethnic group population projections is available.