UK population grows at fastest rate in over 50 years as immigration outweighs low birth rate

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Immigration has driven the fastest UK population growth since the early 1970s as deaths outnumbered births for the first time in 50 years outside of the pandemic, according to official statistics that highlight the country’s demographic challenges.

The UK population was estimated to be 68.3mn in the middle of 2023, an increase of 1 per cent on mid-2022, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday. This is the fastest annual growth rate since comparable data was made available in 1971.

UK population growth slowed to about 0.5 per cent in 2017-19 from an average of 0.8 per cent in the previous decade and dropped sharply during the pandemic. The rapid population growth rate in the latest period was driven by net international migration, which added 677,300 people.

Without immigration, the UK population would have declined for the first time in half a century, excluding the pandemic. Deaths outnumbered births by 16,300 across the country, marking the first negative natural change, except for 2020, across the UK since the mid-1970s. The trend reflects tumbling fertility rates and is expected to be a feature of future population trends.

The contrast between the jump in net migration and the fall in natural population change was “startling” said Tony Travers, professor at the London School of Economics. He added that Sir Keir Starmer’s government would “almost certainly” bring down immigration from this high level.

Jonathan Portes, professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London, also expects a sharp slowdown in 2024 population growth as net migration falls back to more normal levels. He added that “over the longer term, these figures confirm that the UK will be increasingly dependent on migration to mitigate long-term decline both in fertility and in the working age population”.

The sharp rise in net migration was a blow to the last Conservative government and was the subject of intense debate in the run-up to the general election in July, which Labour won by a landslide. Last month, Starmer met Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni for advice on tackling illegal migration.

Migration was the main contributor to population increases for all four nations of the UK, said the ONS. 

The population grew faster in England and Wales, at 1 per cent, than in Scotland, at 0.8 per cent, or Northern Ireland, at 0.5 per cent. Scotland led the fall in natural population change with 19,000 fewer births than deaths.

Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford university, said that a higher population “can help address challenges in public finances, but only if newcomers are towards the higher end of the skill and salary spectrum”.

She added that population growth also adds pressure on housing costs, and “it requires us to invest more in infrastructure like roads and hospitals to maintain current standards of living”.