The pace of people living the UK for lives abroad has slowed to its lowest level in 10 years.
In 2012, there were 286,000 heading out of Britain, the lowest number since 2001. Of these, 126,000 were British passport holders, compared with an average of 152 over the last decade.
In the last ten years, 3.2 million people left the UK, nearly half of whom (1.52 million) were British citizens.
The vast majority of these people were of working age. Nearly two million were aged between 25 and 44, while only 119,000 were older than retirement age.
The Office for National Statistics says the trend for working age adults emigrating from the UK slowed in 2012 and 2013. This has come about, at least in part, by some countries having tightened their regulations for entry.
The United Nations recently issued statistics showing that more than five million Brits now live abroad, up from 4.6 million in 2010 and 3.9 million in 1990.
Currently, there are 7.8 million immigrants in the UK close in number to France (7.4 million) and Canada (7.3 million) and just above Australia (6.5 million) and Spain (6.5 million).
The UK ranks 5th in the world for the number of immigrants after the US with 45.8 million, followed by Russia (11 million), Germany (9.8 million), Saudi Arabia (9.1 million) and the United Arab Emirates (7.8 million).
The UN found that 1.2 million British expats are in Australia, 758,000 in the US and 674,000 in Canada while greater interest in South Africa since the end of apartheid has seen 305,000 Brits taking residence there.
Other areas of expanding settlement for British expats were countries in East Europe, such as Slovakia, Poland and Romania, presumably as prices remain low there.
Around the world more people than ever before live outside their country of birth, namely 3% of the world’s population, or 232 million people. While Europe is the most popular area with 72 million international migrants, Asia is not far behind with its 71 million.
