More than one in four now living in Coventry were not born in UK

MORE than one in four people now living in Coventry were not born in the UK, data on the rich diversity of our city shows.

According to National Census data, 27.9% of the area’s residents were born overseas in 2021, up from 21.2% 10 years earlier.

That is the highest proportion of foreign-born residents of any area in Warwickshire (and the 39th highest in England and Wales), followed by Rugby (18.3%), and then Warwick (16.3%). Coventry also has the highest proportion of non-uk passport holders (12.8%), down from (18.4%) 10 years earlier.

Of an estimated 143,721 Coventry and Warwickshire residents who were not born in the UK, 40.2% were born in the Middle East and Asia, while 49.0% were born in EU nations.

Across all England and Wales, one in six usual residents (16.8%) were born outside of the UK, a total of around 10 million people and an increase of 2.5 million since 2011.

Of the top 20 local authority areas with the highest proportion of nonuk-born residents, 18 were in London,

including Brent (56.1%), Westminster (55.6%) and Kensington and Chelsea (53.9%).

The only non-london areas in the top 20 were Slough (44.0%) and Leicester (41.1%), while Cardiff had the highest proportion of non-ukborn residents in Wales (16.5%).

At the other end of the spectrum, the areas with the lowest proportion of overseas-born residents were Staffordshire Moorlands (2.6%) and Caerphilly (2.9%).

India remained the most common country of birth outside the UK last year (920,000 people, 1.5% of all usual residents), followed by Poland (743,000 people, or 1.2%), and Pakistan (624,000 people, or 1.0%).

But there was a huge 567% rise in the number of people born in Romania, from 80,000 in 2011 to 539,000 in 2021. The biggest decline was in residents of England and Wales who were born in Ireland, down by 20.3% from 407,000 in 2011 to 325,000 in 2021.

Some 5.9 million usual residents (9.9%) held a non-uk passport; and the most common one held was Polish (760,000, 1.3% of all usual residents). A total of 545,000 residents (0.9% of the population) had an address outside the UK one year

before the census, down by 11% from 612,000 (1.1% of the population) in 2011.

Overall, the population of England and Wales grew by more than 3.5 million (6.3%) in the period between the 2011 and 2021 censuses. Changes in the population are caused by births, deaths, and internal and international migration.

Over the last decade, there have been around 1.5 million more births than deaths, meaning that the remaining population growth of about two million residents can be attributed to positive net migration.