UK population could grow 5,000,000 to 72,500,000 people in eight years

Any right-wing pundit will have you believe that Britain will be invaded by millions of people, leading to a ‘staggeringly high’ jump in the population.

The latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures – which seem to have sent Nigel Farage into a frenzy – project that the population will rise to 72.5 million by 2032.

This presents an increase of 7.3%.

What the data also shows is that the rate of growth will be in fact slower compared to the previous 25 years.

‘Labour and the Tories are in denial. They have exploded the population and it’s British people paying the price,’ Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party posted on X today.

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp, in turn, called for ‘hard, binding legal cap on visas issued each year’.

Downing Street shut them down, but stressed that it wanted to bring that number down.

The ONS shares data about the UK population annually – but every time, many take the opportunity to misinterpret it for their gain.

These are the key ONS projections at a glance:

• UK population estimated to rise by 4.9 million by mid-2032
• Migration projected to average 340,000 a year from mid-2028 onwards
• This is 1.2% higher compared with the previous 10 years
• 6.8 million people will be born and 6.8 million people will die

A further projection into the future – covering the 25 years between mid-2022 and mid-2047 – shows the total projected growth of the population is 8.9 million, a jump of 13.2%.

ONS data shows that from 1997 to 2022, the population is estimated to have risen by 9.3 million, or 15.9%.

James Robards, from the ONS, explained the data further: ‘The UK population is projected to grow by almost five million over the next decade.

‘The driver of this growth is migration, with natural change – the difference between births and deaths – projected to be around zero.

‘Our latest projections also highlight an increasingly ageing population, with the number of people aged over 85 projected to nearly double to 3.3 million by 2047.

‘This is in part because of the ageing of the baby boom generation, as well as general increases in life expectancy.

The number of people at state pension age – taking into account the planned rise to 67 – is projected to rise by 1.7 million between mid-2022 and mid-2032, up from an estimated 12.0 million to 13.7 million people.

By mid-2032 more than one in 10 (10.3%) of the population are projected to be aged 75 and over, compared with about one in 11 (9.1%) in mid-2022.

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