Population by Country of Birth and Nationality

Introduction

Estimates of the population by Country of Birth and Nationality from the Annual Population Survey (APS) are published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The figures differ from the National Records of Scotland (NRS) mid-year population estimates as the APS excludes students in halls who do not have a parent resident in the UK and people in most other types of communal establishments (e.g. hotels, boarding houses, hostels, care homes, prisons, mobile home sites, etc).

The ONS estimates include Scotland and are updated on an annual basis. The latest figures are for the year to end of December 2015 and can be found on the ONS website. The estimates on the ONS website include further detail on the country of birth and nationality than shown in Table 1 and Table 2 below, as the data is split into UK, non-UK (or British, non-British), EU27, EU14, EU8, EU2, and non-EU classifications.

Country of birth and nationality, calendar year 2015

In 2015, an estimated 393,000 (7.4 per cent) of the usually resident population of Scotland were born outside of the UK, an increase of 12,000 on the previous year representing no statistically significant change. 203,000 of those non-UK born residents were born outside of the European Union (EU) (51.7 per cent). An estimated 295,000 (5.6 per cent) of the usually resident population of Scotland held non-British nationality, an increase of 13,000 on the previous year representing no statistically significant change. 113,000 of those non-British nationals usually resident in Scotland held non-EU nationality (38.3 per cent).

The five most common countries of birth were Poland (76,000 – 19.3 per cent of the non-UK born population in Scotland and 1.4 per cent of the usually resident population), India (26,000), Republic of Ireland (20,000), United States of America (18,000) and Pakistan (18,000).

The most common nationalities are from Poland (86,000), India (16,000), Republic of Ireland (16,000), United States of America (15,000) and Pakistan (11,000).

Comparisons with previous years

We previously published estimates of Population by Country of Birth and Nationality which cover the reference period of March to February for the years 2000 to 2003. The data for this period have not been subject to the reweighting applied to later years in light of the 2011 Census and is also not based on calendar years. Therefore, comparisons made here are for calendar year estimates for the 10 year period from 2005 to 2015.

Estimates from 2000 to 2015 for population by country of birth and nationality are summarised in Table 1 and Table 2 below and more detail is available on the ONS website. The estimates show a significant difference between 2005 and 2015 in the number of people living in Scotland who were born outside the UK. In 2005, 221,000 people living in Scotland were estimated to have been born outside of the UK compared with 393,000 in 2015, an increase of 172,000. Similarly the number of people with non-British nationality living in Scotland was estimated to have grown from 137,000 in 2005 to 295,000 in 2015, an increase of 158,000.

Background Information (Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) 141 Kb)

Tables

Council area level estimates, broken down into the categories ‘UK’ and ‘Non-UK’ (for country of birth) and ‘British’ and ‘Non-British’ (for nationality), can be found in the tables below.

The tables below have been made available as Excel spreadsheets and can be viewed in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF).

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Statistical Service in Scotland

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Enquiries and Suggestions

Please contact our Statistics Customer Services if you need any further information.
E-mail: statisticscustomerservices@nrscotland.gov.uk

If you have comments or suggestions that would help us improve our outputs or our standards of service please contact:

Kirsty MacLachlan, Senior Statistician, National Records of Scotland,
Room 1/2/3, Ladywell House, Ladywell Road, Edinburgh. EH12 7TF.
Telephone: (0131) 314 4242
E-mail: kirsty.maclachlan@nrscotland.gov.uk.