According to the latest census, one in six people living in England and Wales was born outside the UK.
This is an increase of 2.5 million since 2011, the Office for National Statistics said, from 7.5 million to 10 million (16.8 percent of the population).
Of these, 4.2 million had arrived since 2011, 2.7 million between 2001 and 2010 and 3.1 million before 2001.
The vast majority, 4.3 million, were between the ages of 18 and 29, some three million were under the age of 18, and 2.1 million were between the ages of 30 and 44.
The resident population of England and Wales grew by more than 3.5 million (6.3%) from 56,075,912 in 2011 to 59,597,542 in 2021.
India remained the most common country of birth outside the UK in 2021 (920,000 people, 1.5% of all residents), followed by Poland (743,000 people, 1.2%) and Pakistan (624,000 , 1.0%).
The number of people who indicated Romania as their country of birth increased by 576% compared to the previous census, from 80,000 in 2011 to 539,000 in 2021.
This increase was the highest of any country, driven by work restrictions for Romanian citizens that were lifted in 2014, the ONS said.
The United States and Jamaica dropped out of the top 10 non-British countries of birth in 2021. Italy entered the rankings in sixth place behind Romania (fourth) and Ireland (fifth) and ahead of Bangladesh (seventh), Nigeria (eighth) and Germany. (9th) and South Africa (10th).
Those born in the European Union accounted for 3.6 million (36.4% of all unborn UK residents) of the population, an increase from 2.5 million in 2011. The remaining 6.4 million were born outside the European Union.
The data also shows that 5.9 million residents (9.9%) held a non-UK passport, the most common of which was Polish (760,000 – 1.3% of all residents), then Romanian (550,000). – 0.9%) and Indian (369,000, 0.6%).
Around 545,000 residents had an address outside the UK, up from 612,000 in 2011.
This was expected, the ONS said, due to the COVID pandemic and travel restrictions.
London was the English region with the highest percentage of the population residing outside the UK (1.7%) and the North East had the lowest percentage (0.6%).
The figures showed that the proportion in Wales was even lower: 0.5%.
According to Sky, Census deputy director Jon Wroth-Smith said: “The census paints a picture of how the make-up of the population has changed in the past decade. That decade, of course, saw us leave the EU as well as live with the pandemic.”
“While these events may have had an impact on people’s decisions or ability to migrate or travel at a given time, the census tells us about the change over the whole decade – who was living here in March 2021, compared with March 2011. We can see Romanians have been a big driver in this change, while there have also been increases due to migration from India, Pakistan and Poland, as well as southern European countries such as Italy,” he added, reports Sky.
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