UK's latest migration figures: politically important, economically damaging

Watching the Tides - Marchel Alexandrovich

With so much of the current political debate in the UK focused on migration, the latest numbers which show a decline in net migration of almost 50% in the year to December 2024 compared to December 2023, will undoubtedly generate headlines. In the year to December, the net migration figure came in at 431k compared to 860k in the previous year (431k being the difference between 948k people that immigrated into the UK and 517k people who left).

Note that all these figures are only the estimates, with the lower bound for net migration put at 848k and the upper bound at 1064k. Nonetheless, the sharp decline in the reported level will be a relief for the Labour government being squeezed by Reform and its relentless focus on migration and border control.

UK’s long-term net migration

Source: UK’s ONS

When it comes to the composition of immigration, post-2016 EU referendum (and particularly post-Covid) the number of EU+ immigrants (all current EU countries plus Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein …