About this data

Source: Bank of England, A millennium of macroeconomic data (2017); ONS, Long-term international migration (2026); population from various sources; via Our World in Data

• England from 1541 to 1854: estimates reconstructed from parish records of baptisms, burials and marriages. The United Kingdom from 1855: based on passenger counts, surveys and administrative records. Before 1922 the United Kingdom included all of Ireland.
• To 2011, the Bank of England's estimates, which join earlier counts of ship passengers (1855–1963; these miss travel to and from Europe and by air), total migration counts (1964–1974) and the International Passenger Survey (1975–2011). From 2012, ONS's estimates based on administrative records, such as visa and tax records, divided by the UK population.
• Because the sources measure different things, the series shifts level where they join. There is no data for 1939 to 1946, during and just after the Second World War. Recent figures are provisional and may be revised.

This chart appears in Migration.