In November 2025, Migration Watch UK commissioned JL Partners to conduct a nationally representative poll of 1,520 UK adults on public attitudes toward net migration levels, the perceived impact of migration across eight policy areas, and views on long-term demographic change. The results show settled, cross-party, public majority concern about the scale of recent migration and, in one finding, the most intensely held view recorded anywhere in the poll.
Key findings
- 61 per cent said net migration was too high, including 38 per cent who chose “far too high”, the single largest response category. Eight per cent said the level was too low. The breadth of this view extends well beyond the groups most typically associated with concern about migration levels.
- Majorities of Labour voters, graduates, and respondents across every region of the United Kingdom judged recent levels too high. No demographic group produced a majority saying levels were too low.
- Across all eight policy areas tested, negative assessments outweighed positive ones. There was no area of public life in which the public believed migration had, on balance, been beneficial.
- Housing was the area of sharpest concern: 57 per cent said migration had reduced the availability of homes (net score minus 42 percentage points) and 49 per cent said it had made housing less affordable (net minus 34). Even on the NHS, where public awareness of migrants’ contribution as health service staff is highest, 50 per cent still rated migration’s net impact as negative against 22 per cent who rated it positively.
- 49 per cent of respondents viewed the projection that the White British population will fall below 50 per cent of the UK total by the 2060s negatively, with 33 per cent selecting “very negative”. That figure is the highest single response intensity recorded anywhere in the poll, exceeding concern about housing availability (25 per cent) and crime (24 per cent).
Read the full report: ‘Public Attitudes Toward Migration: A National Polling Analysis’