Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said on Thursday that one in 30 people currently living in the UK arrived in the country between 2021 and mid-2024.
She presented the figure to underscore the recent impact of net migration, which measures the difference between the number of individuals moving long-term to the UK and those leaving.
Ms Mahmood criticised the former Conservative government, claiming it "oversaw net migration of two-and-a-half million" during the period "between 2021 and the 2024 general election".
She was referring to net migration from July 2020 to June 2024. This timeframe covers four consecutive 12-month periods, commencing with the year to June 2021 and concluding with the year to June 2024, just prior to the general election on 4 July 2024.
An estimated 4,750,000 people immigrated long-term to the UK during this time, while an estimated 2,246,000 emigrated from the country, according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The difference between these two numbers – immigration minus emigration – is 2,504,000, which corresponds to the 2.5 million mentioned by Ms Mahmood.
The Home Secretary also said that “at least one in every 30 people in the UK today arrived in that time” – with “that time” being the period that saw net migration of 2.5 million.
The most recent available estimate by the ONS of the total population of the UK is 69,487,000, as of mid-2025.
The figure of 2.5 million is 3.6 per cent of 69.5 million, which is the equivalent of around one in 28 – or “at least one in every 30”.
Ms Mahmood said: “In just four years, this country experienced levels of migration it had previously seen across four decades.”
The current method the ONS uses to calculate levels of migration has been backdated only as far as 2012, with previous methods not directly comparable.
From the year ending June 2012 up to the year ending June 2020 – just before the start of the period covered by the 2.5 million figure – net migration to the UK totalled just under 2.0 million.
Under the previous method, net migration for the calendar years 1991 to 2011 inclusive totalled 3.3 million.
This data suggests net migration in the decades before 2021 totalled a figure some way above 2.5 million.
Net migration per year since 2021 has not been at a consistent level.
In the year ending June 2021, it stood at 251,000, then jumped sharply to 681,000 in the year to June 2022 and 924,000 in the year to June 2023, before falling to 649,000 in the year ending June 2024.
It has since dropped further again, to 204,000 for the year ending June 2025.
The steep rise in net migration in recent years, followed by an even steeper fall, is due to the impact of events in the UK and across the world, together with policy decisions by both the former Conservative government and the current Labour administration.
The jump in migration was driven by a combination of the lifting of travel restrictions following the global Covid-19 pandemic, new humanitarian resettlement schemes for people from Ukraine and Hong Kong, and the introduction of new immigration rules following the UK’s departure from the EU.
The fall is because of fewer people arriving in the UK through the resettlement schemes, a drop in the number of people from outside the European Union arriving to study or work, and an increase in people moving out of the country.
The drop in people from outside the EU arriving to study or work reflects policy decisions introduced by the Conservatives in early 2024 and continued under Labour.
These include stopping care workers and most overseas students from bringing family members to the UK, raising the salary threshold for people wishing to come on skilled worker visas and, more recently, ending overseas recruitment for care workers.
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