
We’re due to fill out our census forms in less than four weeks’ time, but the roadmap for lifting Covid-19 restrictions should trigger a delay.
The latest release of Census 2021 data shows that cities in the Greater South East were the most popular destinations for migrants over the last decade.
The latest release of data from Census 2021 gives an insight into the geography of migration in the decade up to 2021 in England and Wales. So which cities welcomed the most migrants?
Cities and large towns were the most popular destinations for new migrants – 78 per cent of people who arrived after 2011 lived in an urban area in 2021.
London was by far the most popular destination in absolute terms – it was home to 17 per cent of the population in England and Wales in March 2021, but was home to 37 per cent of all migrants who had come to the UK since 2011. This was down slightly from the figure for 2001-2011, which was 41 per cent off all migrants over this period. This relative fall may be influenced by Covid if migrants went home as a result of the pandemic.
In terms of changes in the share of the total population accounted for by people born elsewhere, Cambridge saw the biggest increase, with this share increasing by 8.6 percentage points (from 29 per cent to 38 percent). It was followed by near neighbour Peterborough (7.6 percentage points) and Reading (7.5 percentage points). In total seven of the top 10 cities and large towns are in the Greater South East, with Northampton the only place not in the south to make the top 10.
Sunderland had the smallest increase, a rise of one percentage point to 5 per cent of its total population. It was followed by Birkenhead and Bradford. Seven of the bottom 10 cities are in the north of England, with Southend the only southern city at the bottom of the ranking.
Those places that had already high shares of migrants in 2011 tended to see the largest subsequent increases in their shares (see Figure 1), such as Cambridge, Oxford and Luton. The outliers to this were London and Slough. It’s not clear why this was the case.
Source: Census 2021
These new figures will have an impact on how local authorities are funded as they are used to calculate budgets for the next ten years. For those with growing populations this will come as some relief. The problem however is that it is not clear how much the pandemic has temporarily affected how many migrants are in the country: if migrants left during lockdowns but have subsequently returned, this will undercount how much money certain local authorities need. For this reason alone, we should repeat what was done in the 1960s and have another census in 2026.
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