Polish population

Source: Annual Population Survey (APS) - Office for National Statistics

Since Poland and seven other central and Eastern European countries (collectively known as the A8) joined the EU in May 2004 around 66 per cent of all A8 citizens migrating to the UK have been Polish citizens. Between the year ending December 2003 and the year ending December 2010 the Polish-born population of the UK increased from 75, 000 to 532, 000.

More recently immigration of Polish people has declined. Immigration was highest in 2007 at 96, 000 Polish citizens, but this declined to 39, 000 in 2009. Emigration has also decreased from 54, 000 to 29, 000 over the same time period.

The Polish-born population is widely spread across the UK. In the year ending December 2010 they were one of the three largest non-UK born population groups in all countries and most regions of the UK. London had 122, 000 Polish-born residents, 23 per cent of the UK total.

Of the Polish-born population in the UK in the year ending December 2010, 86 per cent were aged 16 to 64, compared to the mid-2009 estimate of 65 per cent for the UK population as a whole. This situation is very different from 2003, before Poland joined the EU, when only 55 per cent of Polish-born people in the UK were aged 16 to 64.

Q2 Polish Born People in Employment in the UK

Source: Labour Force Survey - Office for National Statistics

In the second quarter of 2011 the number of Polish-born people aged 16 plus working in the UK was 449, 888, an increase of around 60, 000 on the previous quarter. In the second quarter of 2011 an estimated 84.6 per cent of Poles aged 16 to 64 were in employment, compared with a rate of 70.4 per cent for the UK as a whole. The unemployment rate among Polish-born people aged 16 plus during the same period was 5.5 per cent, compared with a UK unemployment rate of 7.8 per cent (both not seasonally adjusted).