Where are young people going as they flee the UK?

As new stats reveal that Gen Z are leaving Britain in large numbers, Helen Coffey digs into the hot locations to set up shop, and asks if the expat reality lives up to the dream

- HELEN COFFEY

There’s been a lot of talk about how the UK’s richest people are threatening to turn tail and leave the country (usually due to the suggestion that they pay a bit more tax on their vast swathes of wealth). But while these multimillionaires can talk the talk, it turns out they're not the ones actually walking the walk.

In reality, it's the nation's young people who are "quiet quitting" the UK in droves, according to new Office for National Statistics figures. Net migration - the number of people coming to the UK versus the number departing - fell by 445,000 between June 2024 and June 2025. During those 12 months, 693,000 individuals left the British Isles, the biggest number in a century.

And Gen Z were first in line for the exit. When the figures were broken down by age, 87,000 16 to 24-year-old British nationals left, as did 87,000 25 to 34-year-olds - far more than in any other age brackets - in the 12 months to March. Dubbed the "brain drain", this mass exodus is indicative of a generation that sees better opportunities elsewhere.

Earlier this year, 24-year-old Cambridge graduate Ray Amjad told The Independent that he'd decided to emigrate to Japan after travelling to 20 countries opened his eyes to his home nation's problems: petty crime, train strikes, overpriced accommodation, crumbling public services and, of course, the famous British weather.

"I was paying tens of thousands of pounds in tax - and then your phone ends up getting stolen out of your hand in the street," he says. "What am I paying all that tax for?" Add to that what he saw as a cap on ambition in Britain and Amjad concluded that packing in his lucrative graduate job in favour of starting his own business abroad would be the smart call.