The ONS has today released the Annual Population Estimates for mid-2015. The UK population is now 65.1 million, an increase of 513,000 on the previous year. See the full ONS data here.
The increase in the population was down to two factors, natural change (births minus deaths) and net migration. Of the half a million growth experienced in the last year, net migration accounted for 336,000 or 65% and natural change for the remaining 172,000.
In the past decade (2006-15), the total UK population has increased by 4.2 million, and has risen by just under 7 million since 1996.
The average annual increase in the UK population over the last ten years was 470,000.
The population is now growing at the fastest rate for nearly a hundred years.
Figure 1: Rise of the UK population, 1971-2015, ONS mid-year population estimates, June 2016
Focusing on the regions, the population of England increased by 470,000 to 54.79 million and over the last decade by just over 3.8 million. The population of Scotland is currently just under 5.4 million, the population of Wales is nearly 3.1 million and the population of Northern Ireland is just over 1.8 million.
Just under two-fifths of international migrants arriving in England and Wales went to London. This contributed to the Capital having the highest net international migration of all regions at 133,900 – up by 26,500 from last year.