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The Conversation
Politics
Madeleine Sumption, Director, Migration Observatory, University of Oxford

Why do the UK’s net migration numbers keep being revised – and can we trust the data?

Office for National Statistics United Kingdom
Max_555/Shutterstock

In May last year, we learned that net migration to the UK (the number of people immigrating minus the number emigrating) had reached an unusually high level of 606,000 in 2022. Except it hadn’t — it was actually 745,000, we were told later in the year.

This spring, the 2022 figure was revised up again to 764,000. Third time lucky? No. Now the Office for National Statistics (ONS) believes that net migration in 2022 was actually 872,000, 44% higher than the original estimate.

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