Indians largest non-EU group immigrating to and emigrating from U.K.

Indian citizens represented the largest group of non-European Union long-term migrants entering and exiting the UK in the year ending June 2025, as per official data released by the U.K. Office of National Statistics on Thursday (November 27, 2025).

Of the Indian citizens who arrived in the U.K. over the period, 90,000 arrived for study-related reasons, 46,000 came for work-related reasons, and 9000 for other reasons. Indians were followed by Chinese, Pakistani, Nigerian and Nepalese citizens in terms of long-term migration from non-EU countries.

Of the Indians leaving the U.K. in the same year, 45,000 were on study-related, 22,000 on work-related visas, visas and 7,000 were in the U.K. for other reasons.

Across nationalities, net international migration (inflow less outflow) to the UK fell significantly, by more than 2/3rds, to 204,000 in the year ending June 2025, down from 649,000 in the previous year.  Emigration out of the U.K. also increased to a provisional 693,000 in the year ending June 2025, up from 650,000 the previous year.

While non-EU+ nationals contributed most to the provisional net migration figures, these numbers have been going down since 2022 . The decline has coincided with a tightening of immigration rules under successive governments as per the latest data. Non-EU migrants mostly come to the U.K. for study and work as per the data.

Apart from student and worker numbers declining over the period, there were precipitous falls in the number of dependents who accompanied these workers (-65%) and students (-85%) to the U.K. compared to the previous year (year ending June 2024). A policy of former U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government banning foreign care workers and students from bringing dependents with them took effect in early 2024. Mr Sunak’s government had also increased salary thresholds for skilled workers.

 There was an increase in the number of asylum applications in the year ending June 2025 compared to the year before. The current Labour government of Keir Starmer has further tightened migration policy. In recent weeks it has recast Britain’s asylum laws and is currently in the process of a public consultation on  settlement policy.

For the year ending June 2025, 41% of those who left the U.K. were non-EU nationals, 36% were British and 22% were from EU+ countries. There has been a continued upward trend in emigration since the year ending June 2022. Half of those who left were on study-related visas though work-related emigration has been increasingly gradually as per the data.