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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 from August 2012 will be updated on an annual basis. The latest figures are for the period to end of December 2011 and can be found on the ONS website. The estimates on the ONS website include further detail on the area of origin than shown in Table 3 and Table 4 below, as the data is split into Republic of Ireland, non-European Union (EU), and EU classifications.

Summary for the year to the end of December 2011

The latest figures for the year to the end of December 2011 show that the number of people living in Scotland who were born outside the UK is estimated to be 340,000. The 5 most common countries of birth were Poland (67,000), India (24,000), Republic of Ireland (22,000), Germany (19,000) and Pakistan (16,000). 

For the same time period the number of people with non-British nationality living in Scotland was estimated to be 259,000. The most common nationalities are from Poland (73,000), Republic of Ireland (20,000), India (16,000), United States of America (13,000), and Pakistan (12,000).

As with all sample surveys there is an element of error associated with these estimates. As a general rule of thumb, usually if confidence intervals for an estimate overlap then there is not a statistically significant difference between estimates. For example, we can be confident that the true estimate of people living in Scotland who were born outside the UK lies in the range 320,000 to 360,000 for the year to end December 2011, with a probability of 95 per cent. The equivalent estimate for the period to end December 2010 was 326,000 with a 95 per cent confidence interval of 307,000 to 345,000. This ‘overlaps’ with the previous period’s estimate, and therefore the difference between these two years is not considered statistically significant. However, for a different time period, it may be that the confidence intervals do not overlap. For example, estimates of the number of people living in Scotland who were born outside the UK for 2004 do not overlap with the estimates for 2010 so the difference is considered statistically significant.

Results for calendar year 2004 to 2011

Estimates from 2004 to 2011 for population by country of birth and nationality are summarised in Table 1 and Table 2 below and more detail is on the ONS website. The estimates show a significant difference between 2004 and 2011 in the number of people living in Scotland who were born outside the UK. In 2004, 204,000 people living in Scotland were estimated to have been born outside of the UK compared with 340,000 in 2011, an increase of 136,000. Similarly the number of people with non-British nationality living in Scotland was estimated to have grown from 127,000 in 2004 to 259,000 in 2011, an increase of 132,000.

Background Information (PDF 25 Kb)

Tables

Council area level estimates, broken down into the two categories ‘UK’ and ‘Non-UK’, 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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