The ONS figures show the number of people coming to the UK for humanitarian reasons – such as from Ukraine and Hong Kong – fell by more than 100,000 last year.
The data estimates about 1.22 million people came to the UK in 2023, and some 532,000 likely departed. The total arrivals is only very slightly lower than the 1.26 million in 2022.
The biggest driver of migration last year was work. There was also an increase in the number of people arriving from outside the European Union on work visas, the figures suggest.
Non-EU immigration for work reasons went up from 277,000 in the year to December 2022 to 423,000 in the year to December 2023, according to the ONS.
More than four out of 10 people moving to the UK for work-related reasons last year came from India or Nigeria, most commonly in the health and social care sector.
Despite this, data from the Home Office published on Wednesday showed a big fall in visas issued to health and care workers in the first part of 2024 but that is not included in the ONS estimates.
Non-EU nationals arriving as dependants of those on long-term work visas rose slightly in 2023 to 219,000 from 204,000 in 2022.
