British national emigration more than triples in ‘wake-up call’ for govt

The number of British nationals that emigrated from the UK for the long term more than tripled year-on-year in 2025, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed.

The ONS figures showed that 246,000 British nationals left the UK in 2025, up from 77,000 in 2024.

In 2024, 15 per cent of the 466,000 people that left the UK long term were British nationals, while in 2025 38 per cent of the 642,000 people who departed the country were British.

Hoxton Wealth CEO, Chris Ball, said the data should serve as a “wake-up call” for the government, and a review of inheritance tax and national insurance policy would be a “meaningful starting point”.

“We noticed a significant uplift in British nationals leaving the UK for more tax-favourable jurisdictions like the UAE, Italy, Portugal and Cyprus in the run up to and after Labour’s first Budget, in October 2024,” Ball stated.

“A large proportion of the Brits that we have worked with across the last 18 months who chose to leave the UK are business owners running service-based businesses looking to mitigate against capital gains tax rises, as well as the increase in the national insurance levy for employers.

“Many of these companies are completely remote, so they have got options in terms of where they can be based.”

Hoxton Wealth was seeing young people looking abroad for employment and a different lifestyle, suggesting there were not enough well-paid entry-level roles available in the UK.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the job market, more experienced professionals were looking at new jurisdictions amid concerns about, for example, their pensions being brought into the scope of inheritance tax from April 2027.

“Large amounts of British nationals of working age, who make significant net tax contributions are leaving the country because they feel their prospects are better elsewhere - and the numbers are rising,” Ball added.

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