National Statistical

Following policy changes, there was a record fall in net migration in 2024. With fewer people arriving on work and study-related visas and emigration returning to pre-pandemic levels, net migration is at the lowest level seen since 2021. Mary Gregory looks in more detail at the latest estimates and considers the impact of falling migration on wider ONS statistics.

Our provisional estimates show net migration of 431,000 for the year ending December 2024, almost half the level in the previous year. The reduction has been driven by falling numbers of people coming on work and study-related visas – especially student dependants. This follows policy changes brought in during 2024 restricting visa applications.

Looking in more detail, non-EU+ immigration has dropped by more than 350,000 since a year earlier. There was a 49% (or 108,000) decrease in immigration for work (main applicants). Meanwhile, the number of work dependants fell by 81,000 (35%). The fall in immigration for study (main applicants) was smaller at 17% for the same period. However, student dependants dropped by 86% from 121,000 to 17,000.

There has also been an increase in emigration over the 12 months to December 2024, particularly people leaving who originally came on study visas once pandemic travel restrictions to the UK were eased. In fact, the departure of non-EU+ nationals who initially arrived for study has followed an upward trend since YE March 2022. Emigration is now around levels seen in the mid-2010s.

Impact of decreasing net migration

Net migration is currently the biggest contributor to population change in the UK. So, when we see changes in migration, these have an impact on our expectations for population estimates and population projections.

Population projections are based on observed historic trends and do not capture short term volatility which could result from changes in policy, behaviours or economic context. The latest provisional net migration estimates are significantly lower than the migration assumption used in our principal National Population Projections published earlier this year.

The changes we have seen in international migration mean latest migration estimates are now more consistent with the short term (2024) migration assumptions in the migration category variant published as one of our variant projections. This projection has the same long-term assumptions as our principal projection, but has some differences in the short term.

For the most accurate population estimate it is best to wait for publication of the mid-year population estimates out this summer. However, some users will still need an estimate before these are available. We will review the data and consult key users before providing further advice on the best estimate to use in the short term. We will also draw on user input to inform our future plans including: potential for early indicators of population change; provisional mid-year estimates for 2025 this winter; and, our plans to include a variant projection consistent with the migration category variant in our publication of sub-national population projections for England, provisionally announced for release in June.

Student migration

Earlier this year we ran an engagement exercise, asking users about the need for an additional net migration estimate which excludes students. Following feedback, we will not be taking this forward. International students are considered long-term migrants by the ONS and the UN if they stay in a country for at least a year. We will continue to publish one figure of net migration, with breakdowns for reason for arrival and departure.

The engagement provided mixed feedback on the need for this additional estimate, including a range of concerns over providing it as well as some potential benefits. The concerns identified were largely due to potential confusion which could be created by publishing multiple estimates of net-migration based on different definitions.

However, there was strong support for the continued publication of insights into student migration and today we’ve published our latest student research paper which highlights how migration for study has changed since the pandemic. It includes more about the behaviours of students from different countries and we have published new details about where and what people from overseas are studying when they come to the UK. For instance, Business and Management is the most popular degree subject for international students, but students from India are much more likely to choose it than those from the USA.

In recent years, we have seen a greater proportion of non-EU+ nationals on study-related visas remaining in the UK for longer. Just over nine in 10 of those who arrived in YE December 2023 remained in the UK one year after arrival compared with 74% of those who arrived in YE December 2019. In our previous article in this series, we published analysis on the relationships between these trends and the introduction of the graduate visa in 2021.

We will continue to develop new analysis and hope to provide similar insights for immigrants with other types of visas, including workers, and are aiming for initial findings in November.

What the future holds

It is too early to say how far net migration will fall but we will continue to monitor trends and the impact of policy changes over the longer term, including those laid out in the Government’s recent immigration White Paper.

For the latest release we’ve kept our methods consistent, with the only minor revisions due to more complete travel data being available. This consistency gives us increasing confidence in our numbers but, as always, we will routinely update our provisional estimates once we have more complete travel data.

We will also update our figures when we make improvements to our methods. While we have a consistent methodology for non-EU+ migration, we still need to make improvements to migration for British Nationals and those from the EU+.

A research paper on estimating EU+ and British National migration will be published ahead of November’s release of long-term international migration statistics. This follows from the update published in February demonstrating our progress towards improved estimates.

Population estimates

This summer we will publish our mid-2024 population estimates.

While we have made good progress in developing the methods for admin-based population estimates (ABPEs), we will continue to use our traditional methods for this year’s release. We aim to publish the ABPEs as “official statistics in development” at the same time so users can see how they compare.

We are confident that ABPEs will be the best method for estimating the population in the future. However, we have decided that more work is needed to successfully meet the criteria for becoming the official estimates of the population, particularly around meeting the priority needs of users, data supply and quality, coherence and comparability.

The additional planned work will also bring us closer to meeting the standards of accredited official statistics. We intend to re-assess the ABPEs against the criteria in spring 2026 with the aim of the ABPEs becoming the official estimates of the population in summer 2026.