The line chart describes how many immigrants live in the UK in the eight-year period, stratified by intended length of stay, while the pie chart below indicates why people migrated in 2008. Generally, immigrants expected both a short or long stay, with living for 2-4 years being an unpopular choice. On the other hand, migration in 2008 was primarily attributed to work and study, while other reasons accounted for much fewer people.
The number of immigrants maintained stable from 2000 to 2008, with a slightly increase, beginning with about 400,000 in 2000 and reaching about 500,000 in total in the last year. Immigrants willing to stay in the UK for 2-4 years were merely half of those willing to stay fewer than 2 years in most of the years, which were almost 100,000 and around 200,000 respectively, while immigrants preferred to stay for 4 or more years being the middle. Additionally, the UK witnessed a drop in number of immigrants in 2002, which then bounced back in 2003.
International students and employees became the most important reasons for migration in 2008, which account for 38% and 32% of the people respectively, followed by 15% immigrants aiming at joining families. Immigrants with other or unstated reasons both contributed to 7% of people.