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Migration Statistics Quarterly Report: July 2018 - Net Migration Adds 350,000 To UK Population

16th July 2018

Main points

Migration is a complex issue and to fully understand it we need to consider all information. Our best assessment shows around 280,000 more people coming to the UK than leaving in 2017, so net migration has continued to add to the UK population.

Net migration has fallen following record levels in 2015 and early 2016, and has been broadly stable since. This is similar to the level recorded in year ending September 2014. Underlying this, immigration has remained broadly stable at around 630,000 and emigration has shown a gradual increase since 2015 and is currently around 350,000.

Our assessment is that net migration has been broadly stable over the last year. Although the Long-Term International Migration (LTIM) estimates show an increase in net migration over the latest year, this is due to an unusual pattern in the estimates for student immigration in 2016, which was not seen in other sources and which our quality work suggests is an anomaly.

The number of non-EU citizens coming to the UK to study has remained relatively stable over the past few years based on an assessment of the International Passenger Survey (IPS), Home Office data on long-term study visas and Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data together.

EU net migration continues to add to the UK population with around 100,000 more EU citizens coming to the UK than leaving. The estimated number of EU citizens coming to the UK "looking for work" continued to decrease over the last year and the number coming to the UK for a definite job has remained stable.

Since 2014, non-EU IPS estimates and Home Office data on long-term work visas show those coming to the UK to work have remained relatively stable, with increases for those on skilled work visas.

Important points for interpreting figures in this bulletin

Throughout this release we have used all available sources of information to come to our best assessment of what is happening to migration. Sources used include: Higher Education Statistics Agency data, Home Office administrative data and DWP information on registrations for new National Insurance Numbers (NINos) (although we acknowledge this last source will also have short-term migration within it and is used with caution). The full rationale for this approach is explained in the Report on international migration data sources, which sets out our latest understanding of the quality of migration estimates.

International Passenger Survey (IPS) estimates for year ending September 2016 saw a decrease in the number of non-EU citizens arriving to study, which was not reflected in the most comparable Home Office student visa data or Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) first year student enrolments data. Because of this unusual pattern we encourage users to look at the broader evidence and longer time series, which offers our best interpretation of long-term student immigration.

As announced in May, a survey processing issue was identified with the IPS. An independent assurance group was formed to fully investigate the issue so that we can be confident that the Long-Term International Migration (LTIM) and IPS numbers presented in the release are correct. Home Office and Department for Work and Pensions data were published in May as usual.

A thorough quality assurance process revealed that the already published year ending September 2017 estimates were also affected by the processing issues and years ending June 2017 and September 2017 were affected by a weighting correction (see part 2 of the Report on international migration data sources for further details).

The latest LTIM and IPS estimates included in this bulletin include corrections to the years ending June 2017 and September 2017, as well as the latest figures for 2017. A full set of corrected data is available in the accompanying datasets and tables.

Progress with our Government Statistical Service programme means that starting from this release we are providing a broader picture of migration trends based on all available sources.

This quarter we also released a blog to explain more about this latest release and how our transformation programme is making a difference.

For the full report go to -

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/july2018revisedfrommaycoveringtheperiodtodecember2017