LONDON: The UK government granted most number of skilled work visas to Indian profession in 2016 up to June, reflecting continued demand for their skills mainly in the IT, medicine, engineering and services sectors, according to official figures revealed on Thursday.
Indian citizens accounted for 57% of total skilled work visas granted (53,548 of 93,935), with USA nationals the next largest nationality group (10,019 or 11% of the total), the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in its August quarterly report.
Visa terms have been tightened in recent years, but another indication of Indians taking up new jobs in Britain was the list of citizens of non-EU countries applying for mandatory National Insurance Numbers: Indians topped the list with 34,000 numbers issued to them.
ONS figures also revealed that Poland with an estimated 831,000 people born in the EU country overtook India as the country of origin of most non-UK born population in the United Kingdom. Indian students continued to give Britain a miss with the number of student visas issued during the year to June 2016 being 10,664. Once one of the topmost sources countries for students, India is now third on the list, after China and the US.
“There was a statistically significant decline in the number of non-EU citizens migrating to the UK to study, from 134,000 in the previous year to 111,000. Of the 111,000, 72% were citizens of Asian countries, though there was a statistically significant decline in citizens of South Asia, with the number coming to study having almost halved”, the ONS said.
{{/usCountry}}“There was a statistically significant decline in the number of non-EU citizens migrating to the UK to study, from 134,000 in the previous year to 111,000. Of the 111,000, 72% were citizens of Asian countries, though there was a statistically significant decline in citizens of South Asia, with the number coming to study having almost halved”, the ONS said.
{{/usCountry}}With a net migration remaining at over 300,000, the figures continued to challenge the Conservative government, which is committed to reducing the figure to ‘tens of thousands instead of hundreds of thousands’.