Indian students, workers lead exodus trend in UK, show latest migration data
Chinese students and workers followed closely with 45,000 departures. Nigerians, Pakistanis, and Americans were also among the top emigrating nationalities.
The impact of the United Kingdom's tightening visa and immigration policies is reflected in the country’s latest migration statistics released on Thursday, with Indian students and workers among the largest group of foreigners to have left the country over the past year.
According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), around 37,000 Indian students, 18,000 workers, and 3,000 individuals left the UK for other reasons, in the year ending December 2024.
The ONS report cited by news agency PTI stated, “Among people emigrating, Indian was the most common nationality.” It also noted that most of the emigration from non-EU countries was study-related, driven by Indian and Chinese nationals.
China remains second second-largest emigrating nationality
Chinese students and workers followed closely with 45,000 departures. Nigerians (16,000), Pakistanis (12,000), and Americans (8,000) were also among the top emigrating nationalities. Making the net migration to fall by 431,000, nearly half of what it was the year before.
“The fall is driven largely by fewer people coming to work and study in the UK, particularly student dependents,” Mary Gregory, Director of Population Statistics at the ONS, explained the reasons behind the drop.
She added, “There has also been an increase in emigration, especially people who originally came on study visas after pandemic travel restrictions were lifted.”
UK government commends emigration trends
The matter has long been a political issue in the country, however, now with the decrease in net migration, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised the statistics on social media, "Under the Tories, net migration reached nearly 1 million...Today’s stats show we have nearly halved net migration in the last year. We’re taking back control," he wrote.
UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper linked the decrease to policies like tougher asylum rules and penalties for illegal working. "These figures show a big increase in returns of failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders," she said.
Meanwhile, the Opposition Conservative Party’s James Cleverly, former home secretary, defended the policies enacted under his leadership, saying, “This drop is because of the visa rule changes that I put in place”.
Biggest drop since Covid-19
Experts noted that the 431,000 decline is the largest in a 12-month period, marking the biggest drop since the early days of the COVID pandemic.
The overall long-term immigration to the UK fell to 948,000, dropping by almost a third from the previous year's 1.3 million. Meanwhile, emigration rose by about 11 percent to 517,000, up from 466,000 the year before.
(With PTI inputs)
