Total number of registrations issued to adult overseas nationals entering the UK – National Insurance Number (NINo) registrations of overseas nationals show the number of migrants who register for a NINo during the year. While this data is a good measure of inflows of migrant workers from outside the UK, it does not measure outflows of the same people. The full dataset is on the datastore.

In 2014/15, there were over 334,000 new registrations from overseas nationals in London, which was 38% higher than the year before – roughly the same proportional increase as nationally. The total number of registrations was the highest since these records began in 2002, which was also the case in the UK as a whole. The rate of registrations in London per 1,000 working age population was 57.4, which was significantly higher than any other UK region – the South East was second highest with 17.4 per 1,000.

In 2014/15, the majority of registrations were from countries in the European Union (76%). This is up significantly from 2009/10 when EU countries accounted for 39% of the London total. The number of registrations in 2014/15 for the EU was 46% higher than the previous year. The long-term trend for countries in Asia and the rest of the world is downwards though both increased slightly in 2014/15 (17% and 13% respectively).

The top country of origin to London was Romania with 67,000 registrations – up from 22,000 the year before. Newham and Brent had the highest number of Romanians. Italy was the second highest country of origin with 35,000 registrations – significantly below the number of Romanians.

Newham and Brent had the highest number of registrations overall with 26,000 and 25,000 registrations respectively. After the City of London (892), Sutton had the lowest number of registrations with under 2,000.

Explore the Tableau report below for more detail.