Immigrant population in England and Wales passes 10m for the first time - up 2.5m in decade 

The number of people living in England and Wales who were born outside the UK has more than doubled in the past 20 years to 10 million.

The change in Britain's population was revealed during the 2021 census, with the results being published by the Office of National Statistics on Wednesday.

One-in-six people now living in England and Wales were born outside the UK - twice the figure recorded in 2001, when just 4.2 million came to the two British nations from abroad, and 2.5 million more than a decade ago.

Those from Romania were the biggest contributors to the migration boom, with their number swelling 576 per cent from 80,000 in 2011 to 539,000 in 2021. 

Figures also  show there are six council areas with higher than 50 per cent of the population born outside the UK. 

The locations, all in London, include Brent, with 56.1 per cent, Westminster, at 55.6 per cent, Kensington and Chelsea with 53.9 per cent, Newham at 53.7 per cent, Harrow with 51.1 per cent and Ealing at 50.8 per cent.  

In all, England and Wales's population grew by more than 3.5million from 56,075,912 in 2011 to 59,597,542 in 2021.

The vast majority of foreign-born nations arriving to the two countries - 4.3million in all - were aged 18 to 29, census data revealed.

More than half of the total population increase in the past decade is because of positive net migration – the difference between those who immigrated into and emigrated out of England and Wales.

India remained the most common country of birth outside the UK - with those 925,000 people making up 1.5 per cent of the population. 

It was followed by Poland, which had 743,000 people - or 1.2 per cent - and Pakistan, with 624,000.

Meanwhile, the countries no longer in the top 10 non-UK countries of birth were the US and Jamaica.