How ‘soft-touch’ Britain grew to become the immigration capital of Europe: Stark stats present UK welcomed 1.27million international nationals in only a 12 months – greater than anyplace else on the continent (and that is sufficient folks to fill a metropolis the scale of Birmingham…)
More immigrants flock to Britain than any other European nation, according to official figures laying bare our ‘soft-touch’ system.
Around 1.27million foreign nationals moved to the UK in 2023 – enough people to fill a city the size of Birmingham.
Germany, now centre of Europe’s anti-immigration fightback, took 1.22m, followed by Spain (1.1m), Italy (378,000) and France (295,000).
The House of Commons Library presented the data in a report earlier this month in a wide-ranging report on migration, using figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the EU’s Eurostat equivalent.
Britain’s immigration figures have since fallen, taking fewer than 900,000 in the year to June 2025.
But a comparison between the latest UK figures and EU countries is not possible, as their official Eurostat data has not been updated since 2023.
The UK’s high numbers over the past few years have raised concerns among experts who point out that the vast majority of arrivals have come via legal means.
Alp Mehmet, of Migration Watch UK, has bemoaned Britain’s ‘soft-touch’ nature, saying: ‘Over five million long-term migrants have arrived in the past five years; around twenty-five times the number who have crossed the Channel illegally in small boats.
Around 1.27million foreign nationals moved to the UK in 2023 – enough people to fill a city the size of Birmingham (pictured)
‘They have come because we made it possible, because they will be better off, and because they know that once here they’re likely to to be allowed to stay.
‘Add to that the state support available, and the question becomes: why wouldn’t they come?’
When it comes to net migration, the difference between people coming to the UK and those leaving, the UK’s figures are also high.
The 2023 figures show it also had the largest annual net total (897,000), followed by Germany (793,000), Spain (616,000), Italy (334,000) and France (218,000).
The UK’s rise to become Europe’s leading destination for immigrants stems primarily from its overtaking of Germany, the long-time leader.
Germany’s annual net migration was around 100,000 in 2009, but it rose gradually and then sharply to a peak of 1.27m in 2015.
This was when the chancellor Angela Merkel, now infamously – threw open Germany’s doors to more than a million asylum seekers, declaring: ‘Wir schaffen das’, translated roughly to ‘we’ll manage’.
In a move that was widely seen as Britain choosing a different path from that of mass migration, the following year, it voted to leave the EU.
But by 2021, less than a decade on, the UK overtook Germany as Europe’s immigrant capital, seemingly against its populations wishes.
Angela Merkel takes a selfie with a refugee outside a Berlin refugee reception centre in 2015
Migrants are escorted through fields by police as they are walked from Rigonce to Brezice refugee camp in Slovenia in 2015
After the borders were opened, much of the public opinion went against Mrs Merkel with widespread banners and protests
As well as soaring immigration rates to its shores, the UK took the crown from Germany because the once-open country has opted to dramatically tighten its border controls over the past few years.
But the primary reason was what is now dubbed ‘the Boris wave’, where Britain experienced a sharp increase in immigration from outside the EU after Brexit from 2021 to 2023.
This was partly down to the UK adopting a new immigration system at the beginning of 2021, which was triumphantly branded an ‘Australian-style, points-based’ scheme.
But in reality, the system was a fairly standard employer-driven work permit of the kind that exists all over the world.
It meant that skills requirements were reduced to allow applicants in middle-skilled jobs (which include skilled trades and technicians etc.) and the salary threshold fell from £30,000 to £25,600.
Previously, non-EU citizens coming to work could only get employer-sponsored work visas if they took up a graduate job earning at least £30,000 (although there were some exceptions for areas like nursing).
And although the disruption caused by Covid lockdowns confused the impact of the switch, when travel restrictions were lifted, the change was quickly apparent.
The UK took the crown from Germany because the once-open country has opted to dramatically tighten its border controls over the past few years. Pictured; A German police officer at a checkpoint near the border with France, in Lauterbourg, May 2025
A jaw-dropping 1.2 million residency visas were issued in the 12 months to June 2022, higher than in any year since records began.
The soaring rates have come despite polling showing the British public is growing more unhappy with the changing nature of their country.
When asked the question whether immigration has been too high over the past 10 years, the rate of people saying it is too high has increased by around 20% in the past two years.
England and Wales’ population now has 11.4 million non-UK-born residents, according to a June 2023 ONS estimate.
This broke down to 3.4 million EU-born and 8.0 million non-EU born, which combined add up to the equivalent of around 19% of the entire population.
On the other hand, there were around 1.3 million UK nationals living in EU countries, excluding Ireland, as of 2024.
India, Poland, Pakistan, Romania, and Ireland were the most common countries of birth among UK migrants in 2021/22. Those top five countries accounted for 32% of all those born abroad.
When it comes to the reason for coming to the UK, family (37%) was the most common, followed by work (29%) and study (14%) in 2022.
Unsurprisingly, London has the largest proportion of migrants among UK regions, with over 40% of its residents born abroad.
Britain’s soaring rates of immigration are a relatively new phenomenon, only showing up in the data in earnest over the past few decades.
Between 1964 and 1983, the UK experienced a period of almost continuous net emigration, with net immigration occurring only in 1979, when net migration was around 6,000.
But since 1994, net migration has been consistently positive and has been over 100,000 per year since 1998, except in 2020 when it fell to 93,000.
Over the last twenty-five years, both immigration and emigration have increased to historically high levels, with immigration exceeding emigration by more than 100,000 in every year between 1998 and 2019.
However, migration trends in 2020 are thought to have been considerably impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, when net migration fell to an estimated 93,000.
But despite already being Europe’s foreign national immigration leader, studies suggest that Britain could have thousands more undocumented illegal migrants on its shores.
Research published by Oxford University experts put the number of illegal migrants in the UK at 745,000 – more than any other European nation.
Passengers at the UK Border gates at Heathrow airport
The figure is more than double the 300,000 in France and ahead even of the upper estimate of 700,000 in Germany, which has the second-largest population of illegal migrants in Europe.
The experts suggested the size of the UK’s illegal migrant population could be because its black economy is bigger than those of other countries.
When it comes to comparing immigrant numbers across countries, it should be noted that each country in the EU has its own way of recording and measuring migration flows depending on its administrative arrangements.
And although EU countries have applied a common statistical definition to measures of migration since 2008, some differences in recording practices may remain.
The 2023 figures used are also estimates, so relatively small differences between countries should be interpreted with caution rather than regarded as significant.
