Indian students, workers lead exodus trend in UK's latest migration data

LONDON: The impact of the UK's tightening visa and immigration policies is reflected in the country's latest migration statistics released on Thursday, with Indian students and workers among the largest group of foreigners to have left the country over the past year.

According to the office for national statistics (ONS) analysis for 2024, around 37,000 Indians who came for study reasons, 18,000 for work reasons and 3,000 for other unspecified reasons led the emigration trend, followed by Chinese students and workers (45,000).

Nigerians (16,000), Pakistanis (12,000) and Americans (8,000) completed the top five emigrating nationalities, resulting in an overall net migration fall by 431,000 last year - almost half the total from previous year. "Among people emigrating, Indian was the most common nationality," read the ONS analysis, based on UK home office data. "Study-related emigration was the most common reason for the five most frequent non-EU nationalities to emigrate in YE (year-ending) Dec 2024. The increase in long-term emigration of non-EU+ nationals who originally arrived on study-related visas is being driven by large number of Indian and Chinese nationals leaving in YE Dec 2024."

Mary Gregory, director of population statistics at ONS, said the fall is driven largely by falling number of people coming to work and study in the UK, particularly student dependents. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: "Today's stats show we have nearly halved net migration in the last year. We are taking back control."