Thousands of People Left England to Live in Scotland — Here’s Why

Thousands of people are moving north, and the numbers are not small. In the year to mid-2024, 48,400 people moved to Scotland from the rest of the UK, while 34,600 moved the other way, giving Scotland a net gain of 13,800 people from elsewhere in the UK.

Scotland’s population also reached a record 5,546,900 in mid-2024, with migration the main reason it grew at all. More people died than were born in Scotland that year, so without migration, the population would have fallen instead of rising.