Thais in The United Kingdom - Population

Population

At the time of the 2001 UK Census, 16,257 people born in Thailand were residing in the UK. The Office for National Statistics estimates that, in 2009, 35,000 Thai-born people were living in the UK.

The UK is home to the largest Thai expatriate community in the world outside of Asia, Australia and North America. Of the Thai-born people in the UK in 2001, 72 per cent were women (although in the British capital, this percentage was slightly lower at 68 per cent) which is considerably larger than the more or less 50/50 breakdown of males and females in the UK. The Home Office states that the overwhelming majority of new Thai immigrants to the UK became naturalised citizens through marriage, with less than one in three cases occurring through residence. Between 2003 and 2006, 64 per cent of all settlement grants to Thai immigrants were given to wives, 3 per cent to husbands and 14 per cent to children. This means that the Thai community in the UK is surprisingly widespread, as marriage migrants are likely to be scattered across the country with their partners, instead of following the trend of migrant groups settling together in large cities. Despite this, due to their large populations already, the cities of London, Sheffield, Birmingham and Glasgow are all home to significant numbers of people of Thai origin – However recent figures show that Brighton has the most.