International Migration: Migrants entering or leaving the UK and England and Wales, 2023

Product Description

Estimates of UK international migration. Those for year ending (YE) March, June, September and December 2023 are provisional and will be updated when more complete data become available. Those for YE March and June 2023 have been updated and data for YE September and December 2022 are now complete. These are official statistics in development.

Main points

• Long-term net migration (the number of people immigrating minus the number emigrating) was provisionally estimated to be 685,000 in the year ending (YE) December 2023, compared with our updated estimate of 764,000 for the YE December 2022; while it is too early to say if this is the start of a new downward trend, emigration increased in 2023, while new Home Office data show visa applications have fallen in recent months.
• With more complete data on how long people are staying in and out of the UK, our previous provisional estimates published in November 2023 have been updated; long-term net migration for the YE December 2022 and the YE June 2023 is estimated to be 19,000 and 68,000 higher, respectively.
• Following a period of growth since 2021, the provisional estimate for total long-term immigration for the YE December 2023 (1,218,000) was broadly similar to the YE December 2022 (1,257,000), with non-EU arrivals accounting for 85% of the YE December 2023 figure; this bulletin covers a period before the implementation of changes to government policy on legal migration rules for family-, study- and work-related visas, which came into effect at varying dates from January 2024.
• Non-EU immigration for work-related reasons increased from 277,000 in the YE December 2022 to 423,000 in the YE December 2023, replacing study as the main reason for long-term migration; almost half of those immigrating for work-related reasons came from India or Nigeria, most commonly in the health and social care sector.
• The number of non-EU nationals arriving as dependants of those on long-term work visas has overtaken the number of main applicants, increasing from 125,000 to 219,000 for dependant applicants and from 152,000 to 204,000 for main applicants, in the YE December 2023.
• There are signs that emigration is starting to increase, particularly among non-EU nationals who initially arrived in the UK on study-related visas (91,000 in the YE December 2022 to 133,000 in the YE December 2023); this likely results from the previous increase in the number of students who arrived following the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and includes those who arrived as students and transitioned to another visa type at the end of their studies.