Indian students, workers lead exodus trend in UK’s latest migration data

London: The impact of the UK’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) analysis for 2024, around 37,000 Indians who came for study reasons, 18,000 for work reasons and 3,000 for other unspecified reasons led the emigration trend followed by Chinese students and workers (45,000).

Nigerians (16,000), Pakistanis (12,000) and Americans (8,000) completed the top five emigrating nationalities, resulting in an overall net migration fall by 431,000 last year – almost half the total from the year before.

“Among people emigrating, Indian was the most common nationality,” reads the ONS analysis, based on UK Home Office data.

“Study-related emigration was the most common reason for the five most frequent non-EU (European Union) nationalities to emigrate in YE (year-ending) December 2024. The increase in long-term emigration of non-EU+ nationals who originally arrived on study-related visas is primarily being driven by the large numbers of Indian and Chinese nationals leaving in YE December 2024,” it notes.

Mary Gregory, Director of Population Statistics at the ONS, said the fall is driven largely by falling numbers of people coming to work and study in the UK, particularly student dependents.

“There has also been an increase in emigration over the 12 months to December 2024, especially people leaving who originally came on study visas once pandemic travel restrictions to the UK were eased,” she said.

The UK government hailed the drop in net migration, an issue that has dominated the political agenda amid soaring figures and the far-right anti-immigration Reform party making considerable gains in recent elections.

“Under the Tories net migration reached nearly 1 million – roughly the size of the population of Birmingham. I know you are angry about this, and I promised you I would change it,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a social media statement.

“Today’s stats show we have nearly halved net migration in the last year. We’re taking back control,” he said.

The drop is the largest ever recorded for a 12-month period and marks the most significant calendar-year fall in net migration since the early stages of the COVID pandemic, according to experts.

“These figures show a big increase in returns of failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders, record levels of illegal working penalties, and the asylum backlog and hotel use coming down,” said UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

Meanwhile, long-term immigration to the UK fell below 1 million for the first time in around three years. That was estimated to be 948,000 in the year ending December 2024, down by almost a third from 1,326,000 in the previous 12 months and below a million for the first time since the 12 months to March 2022.

Emigration, or those leaving the country, rose by around 11 per cent to an estimated 517,000 for the year to December, up from 466,000 in the previous year.

Former home secretary James Cleverly under the Opposition Conservative Party government led by Rishi Sunak hit back at the Labour administration, saying the fall in net migration was a result of policies he had enacted.

“This drop is because of the visa rule changes that I put in place,” he said.