Last week, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its long-term international migration estimates, which have prompted a flurry of catastrophising about unprecedented numbers of young people fleeing Britain. The Telegraph reported an “[e]xodus as young workers flee high-tax Britain” while the Spectator led with “Young people are fleeing Britain.” Nicolas (30 ans), it would seem, is off to enjoy his salary tax-free in Dubai, or on a beach on the Gold Coast.

Articles like these are based on two statistics from the ONS release. The first shows that total long-term emigration had reached the highest level in over 10 years (nearly 700,000, perhaps the highest level since records began); the second shows that of the 255,000 of these emigrants who were British nationals, two-thirds were aged between 16 and 34.

However, the ONS statistics do not support the narrative. As demonstrated by the below chart, the high emigration numbers are driven by non-EU migrants. The vast scale of the Boriswave has now led to correspondingly high emigration numbers: while many recent immigrants came to stay, many others did not. British emigration numbers, meanwhile, have remained relatively flat since the new data methods were implemented in 2021.

High emigration numbers are driven by non-EU migrants

Number of long-term emigrants from the UK, year ending (YE) June 2012 to YE June 2025

As for the second part of the narrative — that it is young people in particular who are leaving — this is just a new statistic for an old trend. The ONS has not released an age breakdown like this before, but young people have always been the most likely group to emigrate or to work abroad. Given that the age profile of migrants at any point in history, anywhere in the world, looks similar, it’s unlikely that British emigrants would have been significantly different in previous years.

Until 2021, the ONS’s method for calculating immigration and emigration was the International Passenger Survey, which involved simply asking a sample of travellers at ports of entry what their reason for travel was. UK migration statistics were therefore based on the answers long-term migrants gave (only making up 4-5,000 of the total surveyed), not on what they actually did. The ONS has now switched to using the Department for Work and Pensions Registration and Population Interaction Database (RAPID) for tracking British nationals, but it acknowledges that producing these estimates remains challenging and has a substantial degree of uncertainty.

What are we to take away from this data? The major story is the decline in immigration from the stratospherically high numbers of the Boriswave years to the merely very high levels of today. But there is no expectation that this decline will continue to the pre-Covid norm: in a classic ratchet effect, as with social spending, the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts net migration continuing at a rate of between 250,000 and 350,000 per year for the rest of this decade, higher than most years in the 2010s.

The decline of the Boriswave is due to the tighter restrictions on migration for work implemented in spring 2024, which restricted the ability to bring dependents and raising salary thresholds. By contrast, the other major story in the statistics is the continual climb of asylum numbers, reaching nearly 100,000 a year — far higher than throughout most of the 2000s or 2010s. This means that asylum is rising as a proportion of immigration: going by the ONS statistics, the asylum and humanitarian categories taken together now nearly equal the numbers coming for work.

Britain’s immigration system is thus becoming more similar to that of other European countries, where asylum makes up a larger percentage of the total. This is especially pertinent politically: asylum will, of course, destroy any chance Labour has of seeing off Reform UK in 2029 unless the Government can get a grip on it. So far, there has been no sign of this occurring despite the rhetoric and the deals with France to try and stop small boats, though the Government is working hard to make asylum less salient politically, if not to actually reduce numbers.

In fact, the asylum system continues to become ever more farcical, with large increases in recent years in applicants from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh arriving not via small boats but on other visas, claiming asylum afterwards. According to the Home Office’s latest statistics, Pakistan now represents the largest country source of asylum claims, with 90% initially arriving on other visas.

The real story today, then, is not about emigration of Brits but the continuing vast inflows of immigrants from South Asia in particular, switching between visa categories according to whichever is easiest at the time. Successive governments’ failure to get a grip on immigration is undoubtedly a major cause of the increasing sense of gloom and anger in the country. It is this sense which surely makes people ever more likely talk about emigrating even if, for now, it often remains just talk.

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Will Solfiac is a London-based writer focusing on subjects including the politics and history of immigration. He can be found on Substack.

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