Skilled professionals from India were top in line for work visas issued by the UK government over the past few months, according to official data, as per a report in Indian business publication livemint.com.
The UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) found in its analysis of UK Home Office data for the previous year that while the pressures of Brexit meant a decline in migrants coming to the UK from within the European Union (EU), non-EU migrants from countries like India registered an increase across different segments. There were 2,266 more Tier 2 visas granted to Indian skilled professionals, which reflected the majority (55 percent) in the visa category largely used by Indian IT companies to move around their workers to work on UK projects, the publication reported.
“Visa grants for Tier 2 (Skilled) account for more than half of all work visas and saw an increase of 15 percent compared with the year ending September 2017, in particular, there were increases for Indian nationals,” the ONS report said, according to the livemint report.
Indian students coming to study at the UK institutions also registered an increase over the same period to hit 18,735, marking a 33 percent increase in the number of student visas granted to Indian nationals. Indians also dominated the tourism figures in the UK, with the largest visitor visa increase of all other countries at 41,224 to hit a total of 4,68,923, marking a 10 percent hike in the number of visitor visas granted, the publication reported.
“Chinese and Indian nationals alone accounted for just under half of all visit visas granted,” the Home Office said.
Indians were also granted 881 more visas for family-related reasons over the previous year, with Pakistanis dominating this category with 1,895 more visas over the previous year.
Jay Lindop, director of the Centre for International Migration at ONS, said: “Net migration continues to add to the population and has remained fairly stable since its peak in 2016, with around 270,000 more people coming to the UK than leaving in the year ending June 2018. Due to increasing numbers arriving for work and study, non-EU net migration is now at the highest level since 2004. In contrast, EU net migration, while still adding to the population as a whole, is at the lowest since 2012,” the publication reported.