In a post on X last week, Reform UK’s home affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf claimed that the UK’s foreign-born population was 13.1 million in 2024, and that this was “up 143% in a decade”.
This isn’t correct—the foreign-born population of the UK was estimated to be 13.1 million in 2024, but estimates suggest the increase over the previous decade was significantly less.
We’ve asked Reform UK about this claim, and will update this fact check if we hear back. But it’s possible it was based on a misreading of figures quoted in a briefing from the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, which previously said: “There were an estimated 13.1 million foreign-born people living in the UK in 2024. That was a 143% increase compared to 2004, when the foreign-born population was around 5.4 million.”
A graph in the same briefing provides more detailed figures based on data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The graph shows that the foreign-born population was estimated to be 13.115 million in 2024, 8.277 million in 2014 and 5.258 million in 2004.
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The Migration Observatory has since acknowledged that there was a typo in its briefing and has updated it to state: “There were an estimated 13.12 million foreign-born people living in the UK in 2024. That was a 149% increase compared to 2004, when the foreign-born population was around 5.26 million.”
Although the Migration Observatory briefing doesn’t give a specific estimate of the increase in the foreign-born population since 2014, the figures in its graph suggest the number quoted by Mr Yusuf was much too high.
However it’s important to note that while the figures used by the Migration Observatory for 2004 and 2014 are based on the Annual Population Survey, the ONS has since changed the way these estimates are produced. The 13.115 million figure for 2024 is therefore not directly comparable with the figures for 2004 and 2014—a point acknowledged in the Migration Observatory graph.
The ONS told Full Fact that a directly comparable figure for 2024 taken from the Annual Population Survey would be 10.423 million—a roughly 30% increase on the equivalent figure in 2014—but that this figure for 2024 was a known under-estimate due to issues with the survey.
The ONS said it’s also possible to compare the figure for the foreign-born population at the time of the 2011 Census with the 13.115 million figure for 2024, which is based on population estimates “rolled forward” from the 2021 Census. This calculation would suggest there was an increase of 64% over a 13-year period.
