LONDON: Indian skilled workers, medical professionals and students held on to their domination in visa tally of Britain over the past year, according to official immigration statistics released here on Thursday.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) data collated by the UK Home Office for the year ending September 2023 shows that Indian nationals topped not only the skilled worker visa route but also the health and care visa route.
In the students’ visa category, Indian nationals continued to represent the largest group of students granted leave to remain on the relatively new post-study graduate visa route, representing 43% of grants.
While the health and care visa figures mark a 76% rise in Indian applicants, the skilled worker route saw a small decline of 11% to drop from 20,360 visas in the year ending September 2022 to 18,107 in the year ending this September.
Indian nationals also continued to account for the highest proportion (27%) of tourist ‘visitor’ visas granted, followed by Chinese (19%) and Turkish nationals (6%).