;

Editorial & Advertiser disclosure

Global Banking and Finance Review is an online platform offering news, analysis, and opinion on the latest trends, developments, and innovations in the banking and finance industry worldwide. The platform covers a diverse range of topics, including banking, insurance, investment, wealth management, fintech, and regulatory issues. The website publishes news, press releases, opinion and advertorials on various financial organizations, products and services which are commissioned from various Companies, Organizations, PR agencies, Bloggers etc. These commissioned articles are commercial in nature. This is not to be considered as financial advice and should be considered only for information purposes. It does not reflect the views or opinion of our website and is not to be considered an endorsement or a recommendation. We cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information provided with respect to your individual or personal circumstances. Please seek Professional advice from a qualified professional before making any financial decisions. We link to various third-party websites, affiliate sales networks, and to our advertising partners websites. When you view or click on certain links available on our articles, our partners may compensate us for displaying the content to you or make a purchase or fill a form. This will not incur any additional charges to you. To make things simpler for you to identity or distinguish advertised or sponsored articles or links, you may consider all articles or links hosted on our site as a commercial article placement. We will not be responsible for any loss you may suffer as a result of any omission or inaccuracy on the website.

Headlines

UK population to hit 72.5 million by 2032 due to immigration, stats office says

Published by Global Banking and Finance Review

Posted on January 28, 2025

Featured image for article about Headlines

By Sachin Ravikumar

LONDON (Reuters) - The UK population is projected to rise to 72.5 million by mid-2032 from 67.6 million in mid-2022, driven almost entirely by net migration, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday.

Britain has seen record levels of immigration in recent years, and the ONS projections may fuel a debate over the ability of strained public services to cope with population growth and the need for foreign workers to drive the economy.

Successive administrations including Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour government have vowed to reduce immigration - a hot political topic that helped lead to the Brexit vote in 2016 and has fuelled the rise of the right-wing Reform UK party.

Net migration - the number of people arriving minus those leaving - of 4.9 million people is projected to account for the population increase over the 10-year period, the ONS said.

The population projections will be welcome news for finance minister Rachel Reeves as they should boost the forecast size of the UK economy, resulting in lower government borrowing, the Resolution Foundation think tank said.

"A larger working-age population means a bigger economy, more workers, and higher tax receipts, which should deliver a fiscal boost of around 5 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade," Adam Corlett, principal economist at the foundation, said in a statement.

The number of births and deaths in the UK over 2022-2032 is projected to be similar, the ONS added.

Although births were projected to increase slightly, deaths are also expected to go up as the large numbers of people born in the two decades after 1945 get older.

The projections also assume a long-term net migration level of 340,000 per year from the year ending mid-2028 onwards, the ONS said. Net migration reached a record of more than 900,000 in the year to June 2023.

ONS data showed last year that the UK's population had grown by 1% in annual terms to 68.3 million as of mid-2023, mainly due to immigration.

While post-Brexit changes to visas fuelled a sharp drop in the number of European Union migrants to Britain, new visa rules led to a surge in immigration from India, Nigeria and Pakistan, often to fill health and social care vacancies.

($1 = 0.8052 pounds)

(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar; Additional reporting by David Milliken; editing by Sarah Young, Hugh Lawson and Ed Osmond)