Research
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Articles
The methodology change that erased 180,000 British emigrants a year
On 21 May 2026 ONS published the largest single revision to UK migration data in twenty years. British emigration for the year ending December 2024 was raised from 77,000 to 257,000. A 234 percent upward revision in one year, attributable entirely to the switch from the International Passenger Survey to the RAPID administrative dataset. Pre-2021 net migration figures used the lower IPS-based emigration estimates and are not directly comparable to current estimates.
Read the full article →108,099 to 11: How Britain ended care-worker migration in three years
Care worker visa grants in SOC 6135 (Care workers and home carers) fell from 108,099 in 2023 to 11 in Q1 2026. Three sequential policy steps closed the route. The 22 July 2025 Labour ban on international recruitment of care and senior care workers was the kill shot. Skills for Care reports 111,000 vacancies on a 1.71 million workforce and a 470,000 expansion target by 2040.
Read the full article →Brexit was supposed to end EU migration. The EU Settlement Scheme has confirmed 7.3 million.
The EU Settlement Scheme has issued 4,429,184 grants of settled status and 2,893,200 grants of pre-settled status since 2018, a combined 7.32 million confirmed-status grants. The scheme closed for new applications on 30 June 2021. Five years after closure, the Home Office is still issuing approximately 300,000 settled-status grants per year. The pre-Brexit estimate of the EU+ resident UK population was approximately half the eventual eligible cohort.
Read the full article →Britain's median wage is around £29,600. The family visa threshold is £29,000.
Partner visa grants fell 33 percent from 2023 to 2025 after the April 2024 income threshold rise from £18,600 to £29,000. The Migration Advisory Committee's June 2025 review recommended Labour lower the threshold to £23,000 to £25,000. Labour retained £29,000. The threshold now sits at the UK median annual wage. By definition half the British working population is locked out of sponsoring a foreign spouse.
Read the full article →India tops every UK migration league table. The Free Trade Agreement officially changes nothing.
India is the top source of UK migration on every published measure. Work visas 15,982. Student visas 95,060. Citizenship grants 47,257 over 2024 to 2025. NINo registrations 129,772. Returns 10,388. The UK-India Free Trade Agreement signed 24 July 2025 locked in existing visa-mobility categories but created no new routes. The dominance is structural and pre-dates the FTA.
Read the full article →Findings
33.9% of England + Wales births in 2024 were to non-UK-born mothers
Births to non-UK-born mothers rose from 24.1% of the total in 2008 to 33.9% in 2024: an extra 9.8 percentage points in 16 years. The number of UK-born-mother births fell from 537,914 to 393,084. Six London boroughs (Brent, Harrow, City, Newham, Ealing, Hounslow) are already past 70%.
ONS Births by parents' country of birth, 2024 release →24 years of NINo arrivals: 14.9 million adults, with one third in the post-2020 surge
DWP NINo data 2002 to 2025: 14.9 million adult arrivals registered for a National Insurance number over 24 years. The post-2020 four-year window alone (2022 to 2025) accounts for 3.30M registrations, 22% of the total in 17% of the years. 2023 was the peak at 1,073,103. India led 2025 at 22.8% of the total.
DWP Stat-Xplore, NINo registrations to adult overseas nationals →Working and not working: what Census 2021 RM021 shows by passport group
Burnley Census 2021 RM021: 57% of UK-passport residents aged 16+ are in work; 75.9% of EU-passport residents; 35.3% of Middle East / Asian-passport residents (59.6% economically inactive, mostly looking after family); 26.8% of no-passport residents (68.4% inactive, mostly retired). Economic activity is the largest demographic story Census 2021 has not been told as.
Census 2021 RM021, Economic activity by passport group, NOMIS NM_2121_1 →109 local authorities projected minority White British by 2051
109 of 278 English local authorities are projected to have a White British population below 50% by 2051. 76 of these currently have a White British majority today. 74 are projected below 50% by 2041. This is not a London story. Coventry, Reading, Derby, Peterborough, and Milton Keynes all cross the threshold.
Census 2021 + Hamilton-Perry v7.0 projection model →Albanian asylum seekers don't change ethnic minority statistics. 90% identify as White
Census 2021 data shows 89.7% of people identifying as Albanian classify themselves as White Other. Albanian asylum seekers (the second-largest claiming nationality with 57,360 decisions) reduce White British percentage but do NOT increase ethnic minority statistics. This distinction matters for accurate demographic analysis.
Census 2021 TS022 Detailed Ethnicity →Arab population projected to triple in 20 councils by 2051. a group no model has tracked before
Our v7.0 model is the first to project the Arab ethnic group separately. Census 2021 counts 319,452 people identifying as Arab. previously hidden inside 'Other ethnic group'. In areas like Brent (5.3% → 16.5%) and Westminster (7.6% → 13.2%), the Arab population is projected to grow faster than any other group.
ONS Census 2021 Custom Dataset →Birmingham: 43% White British today, projected under 11% by 2051
Birmingham's White British population fell from 53% (2011) to 43% (2021). Ten percentage points gone in a single decade. Hamilton-Perry projects 10.7% by 2051. Pakistani fertility (TFR 2.52) against White British fertility (TFR 1.31) does the rest.
Census 2021 + Hamilton-Perry projection model →Blackburn projected minority White British by 2028. Three more Lancashire towns follow by 2045.
Blackburn with Darwen: 56.9% White British in Census 2021. Projected below 50% by approximately 2028. Pendle follows around 2034. Preston around 2036. Burnley around 2045. Four Lancashire towns crossing the same threshold within two decades.
Census 2021 + Hamilton-Perry v7.0 →Women in the most deprived areas have 66% more births. Poverty drives fertility, not just ethnicity.
ONS 2024 births data by IMD deprivation decile: most deprived quintile accounts for 25.5% of births, least deprived just 15.4%. Deprivation-fertility ratio: 1.66x. Pakistani and Bangladeshi populations are concentrated in deprived areas. Part of the apparent ethnic fertility gap is poverty, not culture.
ONS Linked Births 2024, Table 8 →White British fertility has fallen to 1.31. lower than any demographic model assumed
ONS 2024 births data reveals White British fertility has fallen to an empirical TFR of approximately 1.31. well below the 1.55 assumed by academic models and the 1.71 implied by Census 2021 child-woman ratios. Pakistani fertility remains at 2.52. The fertility gap between ethnic groups is wider than any published model uses.
ONS Linked Births 2024 →Roma and Gypsy/Traveller populations now separately tracked. concentrated in specific boroughs
Our v7.0 model separates Roma (98,785) and Gypsy/Irish Traveller (63,348) from the White Other category for the first time. Roma are concentrated in London boroughs (Hammersmith 0.81%, Haringey 0.76%). Gypsy/Travellers are concentrated in rural LAs (Maidstone 0.58%, Fenland 0.57%). These populations were previously invisible in demographic projections.
ONS Census 2021 Custom Dataset →Academic ethnic projections over-predicted White British share in 95% of areas
The NEWETHPOP cohort-component model, the most cited academic ethnic projection for UK local authorities, over-predicted White British share in 282 of 296 areas when its 2021 projection is compared against actual Census 2021 results. Mean absolute error: 3.95 percentage points.
NEWETHPOP (University of Leeds) →What's really driving ethnic change: national trend, not local migration
Shift-share decomposition of 305 local authorities shows that 84% of Burnley's White British decline is explained by the national trend, not local immigration. Most areas are changing because the whole country is changing, not because of exceptional local migration.
ONS Census 2011 & 2021 →Councils with fastest demographic change spend most on adult social care
The five councils with the fastest White British population decline spend an average of £612 per capita on adult social care, compared to £472 for the five with the slowest change. Ageing populations, deprivation, and demographic transition all contribute to higher social care demand.
NHS Digital ASC Report →EHCP demand grew fastest in areas with rapid demographic change
Across 25 tracked local authorities, the average five-year growth in Education, Health and Care Plans is 42%. Areas experiencing faster demographic change (including Blackpool +51%, Preston +47%, and Doncaster +45%) tend to show above-average SEND demand growth. Multiple factors drive this pattern.
DfE SEND Statistics →