More than three times as many Poles are leaving the U.K. as are deciding to settle there, fresh data from the British Office for National Statistics (ONS) show.
According to a provisional bulletin published on November 27, the ONS estimates that 7,000 Polish citizens immigrated to the U.K. between mid-2024 and mid-2025.
But as many as 25,000, or more than three times the number of Poles, chose to move in the opposite direction.
Polish was the second most common EU nationality to emigrate from the U.K., topped only by Romanian. It was the fifth most common EU nationality to move to the U.K., topped by Romanian, Italian, Irish and French.
Many Poles are also choosing to return home. Official figures estimate that 30,000 Poles return annually and 250,000–300,000 have done so since 2017, primarily for family reasons.
“We leave for the money, but we return for the family,” Professor Izabela Grabowska, director of the CRASH Center for Research on Social Change and Human Mobility at Warsaw’s Kozminski University, said earlier in the year.
In addition to family, a key driver for re-migration is Poland’s booming economy, including low unemployment and a narrowing income gap with Western nations.
“People approaching retirement age or those considering entrepreneurship will be returning,” Professor Paweł Kaczmarczyk, director of the University of Warsaw’s Centre for Migration Research said.
The UK exodus: More Polish people are heading home than settling in Britain
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