Non-British Population in the UK – 2020

According to a study conducted in December 2019, the main reasons why people migrate to the UK was either for work  (35%) or for study(32%). The student visas have increased net migration from non-EU countries for 2019 up to 38 percent to 282,000.

 

The size of the UK's foreign-born population grew from around 5.3 million in 2004 to nearly 9.3 million in 2018.

 

While the number of EU migrants has risen more rapidly over the past decade than non-EU migrants, non-EU born foreigners still make up a majority of the foreign-born population. In 2018, 39 percent of migrants belonged to the EU.

 

According to Worldometer, the current population of the UK is 67,900,637 which is 0.8% of the world population.

 

As for the country of origin of the population, in 2019, 9.5 million of the population were not from the UK  and the non-British population was at 6.2 million. Among the population which were non-UK by birth, Poland contributed a major percentage   The city of London had the highest percentage of the non-UK population in the country.

 

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) in the UK says that the country recorded the highest number of total migration from outside the EU in 2019 which was also the highest in the last 45 years. The ONS however claims that the overall migration levels to the UK have remained stable since the end of 2016 but the migration patterns of EU and non-EU citizens have followed different trends. While migrants from the EU mainly arrived for work, those from the non-EU countries mainly came to the EU for study purposes.

 

Reasons for coming to the UK

27% of the migrants from non-EU countries came here for work which came up to 95,000 in 2019.  Another 16% (54000) of non-EU citizens came here accompanying those on a work or study visa.

 

Net migration at a high

The net migration from outside the EU which is the balance between the number of people entering and leaving the country was also the highest in 2019, which was at 282,000 and has gradually risen to 2013.