Net international migration, the difference between the number of people arriving in the UK and leaving, is estimated at 677,300 for the year to mid-2023.
Figures show that, without that net migration figure, the UK’s population would have fallen.
Downing Street said Sir Keir Starmer had been “clear that overall net migration does need to come down” and the government would “end the situation where legal migration is used as an alternative to tackling skill shortages in the UK”.
Scotland had 19,000 more deaths than births in the year to June 2023, and Wales recorded 9,500 more.
In contrast, there were 9,800 more births than deaths in England, and 2,500 more in Northern Ireland .
These figures mean the UK had a negative natural change in the population for the first time since 1976, with the exception of the Covid pandemic year of 2020. The ONS added the figures in 1976 were based on year-end data, rather than mid-year data.
The overall UK population is estimated to have risen by 1% in the year to June 2023, which the ONS says is the largest annual percentage increase since 1971 when the current series of mid-year estimates began.
It follows a rise of 0.9% in the year to mid-2022.
All population estimates are likely to be revised within the next year as new data becomes available and improvements to estimates of international migration continue to be made, the ONS added.
One expert told the PA news agency the negative natural change is “not unexpected” due to the low rate of babies being born and the large post-war birth cohorts now entering old age having had longer lives.
“The number of deaths we expect will increase each year over time as this generation of older adults ages and dies,” Professor Sarah Harper, director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, added.
