National Insurance Number registrations – by people coming to London from overseas to work – dropped over a quarter in the year to the last three months of 2017. Inner boroughs have more Western Europeans registering, while outer boroughs have more from Romania, Bulgaria and Poland.

National Insurance Number Registrations

National Insurance Number registrations – by people coming to London from overseas to work – continue to drop in London and the pace appears to be accelerating. There were a little more than 61,500 registrations in the final three months of 2017, which was down over a quarter compared to the same period in 2016. The drop-off was, again, particularly stark among EU nationals, whose registrations fell by 30 per cent. Registrations by non-EU nationals, meanwhile, dropped 11 per cent.

Location of registration

Across the 2017 calendar year, Newham received the highest proportion of registrations, accounting for 7.8 per cent of all those in the capital, nearly 19,000 individuals. Other boroughs receiving a significant proportion include Tower Hamlets (6.3 per cent) and Brent (6 per cent). Excluding the City, Bexley and Sutton (both 0.7 per cent) received the lowest proportion of registrations, closely followed by Richmond (0.9 per cent).

EU countries provide the most registrations across all the boroughs. Western European countries (predominantly France, Italy and Spain) are the largest contributors in central London, while newer EU members (particularly Romania, Bulgaria and Poland) are more prominent in outer London registrations. Of the non-EU countries, only India and Australia make the top three in any borough (excluding the City which is topped by the USA).