This is how migration has affected the UK population this decade
One in 30 people currently living in the UK will arrive in the country between 2021 and mid-2024, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said on Thursday.
He presented the figure to highlight the recent impact of net migration, which measures the difference between the number of people moving into the UK and those leaving in the long term.
Ms Mahmood criticized the former Conservative government and claimed it “oversaw a net migration of two and a half million” in the period “between the 2021 and 2024 general elections”.
He was talking about net migration from July 2020 to June 2024. This time period covers four consecutive 12-month periods beginning in June 2021 and continuing until June 2024, just before the 4 July 2024 general election.
According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), an estimated 4,750,000 people migrated long-term to the UK during this period, while an estimated 2,246,000 people emigrated from the country.
The difference between these two numbers (immigration minus immigration) is 2,504,000, which corresponds to the 2.5 million that Ms. Mahmood mentioned.
The Home Secretary also said that “at least one in every 30 people in England today came at that time” and that “at that time” was a period when there was a net migration of 2.5 million.
The latest estimate by the ONS for the total population of the UK is 69,487,000 by mid-2025.
The figure of 2.5 million corresponds to 3.6 percent of the 69.5 million, which equates to approximately one in 28, or “at least one in every 30.”
Ms Mahmood said: “In just four years, this country has experienced levels of immigration it has not seen in four decades.”
The ONS’s current method of calculating immigration levels is only backdated to 2012 and previous methods are not directly comparable.
From the year ending June 2012 to the year ending June 2020 – just before the start of the period covered by the 2.5 million figure – net migration to the UK totaled just under 2.0 million.
Under the previous method, net migration totaled 3.3 million for the calendar years 1991 to 2011.
These data show that net migration in the years before 2021 reached a figure of just over 2.5 million.
Annual net migration since 2021 has not been at a consistent level.
It stood at 251,000 in the year ending June 2021, then jumped to 681,000 in the year to June 2022, 924,000 in the year to June 2023, before falling to 649,000 in the year ending June 2024.
It has since fallen further to 204,000 for the year ending June 2025.
The sharp rise in net migration in recent years, followed by an even steeper decline, is due to policy decisions from both the former Conservative government and the current Labor administration, as well as the impact of events in the UK and around the world.
The increase in migration has been driven by a combination of the lifting of travel restrictions following the global Covid-19 pandemic, new humanitarian resettlement programs for people from Ukraine and Hong Kong, and the introduction of new immigration rules following the UK’s departure from the EU.
This decline is due to fewer people coming to the UK through relocation programmes, a decline in the number of people coming from outside the European Union to study or work, and an increase in the number of people moving out of the country.
The decline in the number of people coming from outside the EU to study or work reflects policy decisions that the Conservatives introduced in early 2024 and have continued under Labour.
These include stopping most care workers and overseas students from bringing family members to the UK, raising the salary threshold for those wanting to come on a skilled worker visa and, more recently, ending the recruitment of care workers abroad.
