{"id":129694,"date":"2025-05-25T03:55:26","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T03:55:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/129694\/"},"modified":"2025-05-25T03:55:26","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T03:55:26","slug":"uk-migration-drops-sharply-as-thousands-of-indian-students-and-workers-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/129694\/","title":{"rendered":"UK migration drops sharply as thousands of Indian students and workers exit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The UK\u2019s latest migration statistics reveal a sharp impact of stricter visa and immigration policies, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiatoday.in\/education-today\/news\/story\/uks-new-immigration-rules-what-indian-students-and-professionals-need-to-know-2724612-2025-05-14\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\">Indian students and workers among the largest groups to leave the country<\/a> in the past year.<\/p>\n<p>According to 2024 data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), approximately 37,000 Indians who came to the UK for education, 18,000 for work, and another 3,000 for other reasons emigrated over the past year. This places Indian nationals at the top of the list of people leaving the UK.<\/p>\n<p>They were followed by Chinese nationals, with 45,000 departing for similar reasons. Other significant emigration figures include Nigerians (16,000), Pakistanis (12,000), and Americans (8,000).<\/p>\n<p>As a result, net migration to the UK fell by 431,000 in 2024 \u2014 nearly half of the total recorded the previous year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAmong people emigrating, Indian was the most common nationality,\u201d the ONS report noted, drawing from UK Home Office data. \u201cStudy-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.<\/p>\n<p>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,\u201d it notes.<\/p>\n<p>ALSO READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiatoday.in\/world\/story\/muhammad-yunus-threatens-to-resign-students-islamists-protests-dhaka-agitation-bangladesh-army-chief-election-2729116-2025-05-23\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\">Yunus threatens to resign, protests might rock Dhaka yet again<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the UK government has welcomed this significant drop in net migration. Prime Minister Keir Starmer highlighted the change, noting net migration had nearly halved in 2024 compared to the previous year\u2014a record fall for a single calendar year. He framed it as a major shift from the nearly 1 million net migration figure seen under the previous Conservative government.<\/p>\n<p>Home Secretary Yvette Cooper pointed to increased deportations of failed asylum seekers and foreign offenders, a crackdown on illegal working, and reduced asylum backlogs and hotel usage as key drivers of the trend.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Office for National Statistics, long-term immigration dropped to 948,000 in 2024\u2014the lowest in about three years\u2014down from 1.33 million in 2023. At the same time, emigration rose by 11 per cent, reaching 517,000, up from 466,000 the year before.<\/p>\n<p>With inputs from PTI<\/p>\n<p>Published By: <\/p>\n<p>Aashish Vashistha<\/p>\n<p>Published On: <\/p>\n<p>May 23, 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK\u2019s latest migration statistics reveal a sharp impact of stricter visa and immigration policies, with Indian students&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,57180,1259,57181,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-129694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-uk-migration","16":"tag-uk-news","17":"tag-uk-students","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114566458442516819","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}