Part 1: Beyond the Slogans: Official Figures Show Britain Can’t Fund the NHS or Pensions Without Migration

This three-part blog explores why, in a rapidly ageing, low-fertility Britain, migration is not a lifestyle choice but a basic requirement for keeping the country running. Drawing on official demographic data and hard economic evidence, it shows how parties that promise to shut the door to migrants while protecting the NHS, pensions and public services are hiding the true cost: higher taxes on a smaller working population, fewer nurses, carers and key workers, and ever greater pressure to support a growing older population.

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For years, politicians have promised the public two things at once: tighter immigration and well-funded public services. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) and now the National Audit Office (NAO) are both saying, in different ways, that this is not how the numbers work. With births falling, the population ageing and the asylum system racking up avoidable costs, “less migration” and “better services” is a slogan, not a plan.

According to the latest 2022-based National Population Projections, the UK’s population will rise from 67.6 million in mid-2022 to 72.5 million in mid-2032 – an increase of 4.9 million people. Every one of those extra people is projected to come from net migration. Births and deaths cancel each other out almost perfectly (Office for National Statistics, National population projections: 2022-based).

In other words, if you want more workers paying taxes to support more pensioners, you have two levers: support people to have more children, or accept sustained migration. Do neither, and the country shrinks and ages – with serious consequences for the NHS, social care, pensions and the tax burden on those still working.

The ONS forecast: growth entirely from migration

The ONS projections are mechanical, not political. They take today’s patterns of births, deaths and migration and roll them forward.

Over the decade 2022–2032 they expect roughly:

• 6.8 million births
• 6.8 million deaths
• Net migration of 4.9 million people

So the population grows by 4.9 million only because 4.9 million more people are expected to arrive than leave. Natural change – births minus deaths – is effectively zero (ONS, National population projections: 2022-based; Government Actuary’s Department, 2022-based population projections technical bulletin).

Put bluntly: on current trends, if net migration were reduced to zero, the UK would not grow at all in the 2020s. It would stall and then, as the projections move into the 2030s, start to shrink.

UK Population Change by Component, 2022–2032

This chart shows four bars: births, deaths, net migration and total population change (all in millions). The births and deaths bars are the same height: 6.8 million. The net migration and total change bars match at 4.9 million, making clear that net migration alone explains the growth. The source note inside the frame reads:
“Source: ONS, National population projections: 2022-based (2025); GAD 2022-based population projections bulletin.”

Fertility has fallen well below replacement

A familiar political dodge is to suggest that we could simply “grow our own” population instead of relying on migrants. The problem is: we are not doing that either.

ONS birth statistics show that in 2023 the total fertility rate (TFR) in England and Wales fell to 1.44 children per woman – the lowest since records began in 1938 (ONS, Births in England and Wales: 2023). Demographers generally reckon that around 2.1 children per woman are needed to keep a population stable in the long run without migration. The ONS assumes that, even after some modest recovery, the UK’s long-term fertility rate will only reach about 1.45 – still far below that replacement level (ONS, 2022-based NPP fertility assumptions).

In plain English: we are having too few children to replace ourselves. There is no baby boom coming to rescue the pension system.

Fertility in the UK vs Replacement Level

“Source: ONS, 2022-based NPP fertility assumptions; ONS Births in England and Wales: 2023.”

An ageing population: more 85-year-olds, fewer children

Even with low fertility, people are living longer. That is a success story – but also a financial challenge.

The Government Actuary’s Department (GAD), summarising the ONS projections, highlights three big shifts between 2022 and 2047:

• The UK population is projected to rise to about 76.6 million.
• The number of people aged 85 and over will almost double, from 1.7 million to 3.3 million.
• The old-age dependency ratio – people of pensionable age per 1,000 working-age adults – rises from 278 to 302 (Government Actuary’s Department, 2022-based population projections technical bulletin).

That means more people needing pensions, GP appointments, hospital beds and social care – and relatively fewer people in work to pay for them.

UK Population Aged 85+, 2022 vs 2047

“Source: GAD 2022-based population projections bulletin summarising ONS National population projections (2025).”

Old-Age Dependency Ratio, UK 2022 vs 2047

“Source: GAD 2022-based population projections bulletin; ONS old-age dependency ratio dataset.”

Even with net migration at the levels assumed by the ONS, every 1,000 workers will have to support around 24 extra pensioners by the mid-2040s. Take migrants out of the equation and that ratio would be worse.

Migration is not a “nice to have” – it is doing all the heavy lifting

The Migration Observatory’s analysis of the same ONS projections reaches an uncomfortable conclusion: net migration has become the dominant driver of population growth. In the 15 years before the pandemic, around two-thirds of population growth came from net migration. Since 2020, it has accounted for almost all of it, because natural change – births minus deaths – is close to zero and expected soon to turn negative (Migration Observatory, analysis of ONS population projections and historic trends).

Looking ahead, the principal ONS projection assumes net migration averaging 340,000 a year from the late 2020s. Under that scenario the population rises to about 76.6 million by 2047. Under the “zero net migration” variant, the UK population would start to fall from the early 2020s, with all four nations in decline by the 2040s (ONS, National population projections: 2022-based).

This is not an ideological argument; it is arithmetic. In a low-fertility, long-lived nation, if fewer people come in and more people live longer, the share of older people will rise sharply unless there is a large and sustained baby boom. That boom is nowhere in sight.

The Shepway Vox Team

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SOURCES – PART ONE
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Office for National Statistics, National population projections: 2022-based.
Office for National Statistics, Births in England and Wales: 2023.
Office for National Statistics, 2022-based NPP fertility assumptions.
Government Actuary’s Department, 2022-based population projections technical bulletin.
Migration Observatory, briefing on the impact of migration on UK population growth.