Immigration Drove Fastest Population Increase Since 1971: ONS

People shopping on Oxford Street in London, England, on Dec. 27, 2022. James Manning/PA Media

The UK population increased to an estimated 68.3 million and the main driver was net immigration, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.

According to the ONS’s latest statistical bulletin published on Tuesday, the population grew by 1.0 percent in the year to June 2023, the largest annual percent increase since comparable data collection began in 1971.

Some 68,265,200 people were resident in the UK to the middle of last year, up 662,400 from 67,602,800 in mid-2022—which itself is also the biggest annual numerical increase since 1971.

In the year to June 2023, 1,185,600 people immigrated to the UK and 508,300 people left the country, leaving net international immigration—those entering minus those leaving—at 677,300, the figure being what the ONS described as the “main contributor to population increase” across all four countries.

The ONS said that all estimates for mid-2023 are likely to be revised in 2025, as new data becomes available and improvements to estimates of international immigration continue to be made.

More Deaths Than Births

The statistics agency also estimated there were 16,300 more deaths than births, with 680,700 people dying and 664,400 babies being born.

They added that with the exception of the COVID-19 pandemic year of 2020, this was the first time since 1976 that there had been natural negative change in the population.

Professor Sarah Harper, director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, said the negative natural change is “not unexpected.”

Harper said, “Given the low childbearing rate currently in the UK, and the large post-war birth cohorts who have benefited from longer lives now entering old age, the number of deaths we expect will increase each year over time as this generation of older adults ages and dies.”

Falling Birth Rate

Like much of the Western world, the UK is experiencing falling birthrates, with the total fertility rate (TFR) decreasing to 1.49 children per woman in England and Wales in 2022, down from from 1.55 in 2021. This figure has been steadily decreasing since 2010.

Demographers say a TFR of around 2.1 is the minimum needed to maintain a population, and some concerned about fertility have warned that that decrease could accelerate, owing to changing social attitudes among younger people.

Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in April, then-Conservative MP for Penistone and Stockbridge Miriam Cates said that it could come to a point where it is no longer “the norm” to have a child or that it could even become “culturally unacceptable.”

Also at ARC, economist Philip Pilkington and demographer Paul Moreland warned that their modelling suggests fertility could “fall[] off a cliff” with younger generations having very few children, noting that their “lifestyle and their aspirations do not correlate with having large numbers of children.”

Morland and Pilkington said that the UK must choose the option of “more children,” or accept mass immigration or economic stagnation.

The authors said that while there was little the government could do to affect a cultural change, Pilkington said that pro-natalist policies in Hungary were promising and it could be worth trying to offer similar benefits to prospective parents in the UK.

Immigration Cap

The UK saw record high net immigration figures of 764,000 in 2022, exceeding pre-Brexit and pre-COVID-19 lockdown era figures of 200,000 to 300,000 per year. Other recent years also saw high net immigration, with 466,000 in 2021 and 685,000 last year—despite promises from successive Conservative governments to reduce it.

In their 2024 election manifesto, the Conservatives had pledged to introduce a “legal cap” on immigration set to fall every year, and candidates for party leadership have put controlling immigration—both legal and illegal—central to their campaigns. Tom Tugendhat said last week he would cap immigration at 100,000 annually, with the shortfall in skills being met by a pledge to train up the UK’s workforce.

Labour said before winning the election that the overall level of net immigration “must be properly controlled and managed,” pledging to reform the points-based system—but would not commit to an annual cap.

Estimated mid-year UK population. PA Wire

Responding to the figures, the prime minister’s official spokesman said Sir Keir Starmer is determined to bring down net immigration.

Downing Street said that Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper “have been clear that overall net migration does need to come down, and we should end the situation where legal migration is used as an alternative to tackling skill shortages in the UK.”

The spokesman added that the Migration Advisory Committee is conducting assessments to highlight key sectors where labour market failures have led to high overseas recruitment and that “rules around migrant sponsorship will be toughened to ensure employers guilty of flouting employment laws are banned from hiring from abroad.”

PA Media contributed to this report.