‘ONE BRITISH NATIONAL EMIGRATES EVERY THREE MINUTES’

New research from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has revealed that some 198,000 British nationals moved overseas last year, bringing the total to 5.5 million. Its report goes on to predict that another one million will make the move in the next five years, which equates to around one person every three minutes.

The strong pound seems to have been a key factor in the decision to move overseas. Danny Sriskandarajah, associate director of IPPR, says: “When the going is good, Brits get going. Brits are looking for a better job, a better quality of life or a sunny retirement. Very few leave because they think the country has ‘gone to the dogs’.”

The report also reveals some other interesting statistics about settling abroad: just one in four Brits who have retired to the Costa del Sol speak Spanish, compared to three quarters of those who have retired to Tuscany who speak Italian. In countries like Spain and Saudi Arabia, Brits tend to live in expat communities; where there is no language barrier, for example in Australia and the US, the British population is more widespread.

Speaking the local language is one of the biggest obstacles in settling abroad, according to the report. Sriskandarajah concludes: “For some emigrants, being ill-prepared or not knowing the local language can cloud their experience of a place in the sun.”