Migration Policy Scotland research finds Scottish attitudes to immigration have warmed considerably. This is the first representative survey of attitudes to immigration since 2014. The report details the findings of an online survey carried out through Diffley Partnership’s Scotpulse panel between 17-19 January 2023 gathering the views of 1,162 adults across all 8 Scottish Parliamentary regions.

Key Findings

1. A greater proportion of the Scottish public want immigration to be increased (38%)rather than decreased (28%), although those wanting an increase mainly support a modest increase, while those wanting immigration to decrease want it to be reduced ‘a lot’. A sizeable proportion want immigration to ‘remain the same as it is’ (34%).
2. The impacts of immigration are seen as positive by the majority of people in
   Scotland. This is true of impacts at both Scotland (59%) and local area level (48%).
3. People in Scotland have a strong preference for labour migrants to have the option
   to remain in Scotland for the longer term ‘to settle and integrate’ (66%)

For media coverage and interviews on this report please go to our project pages.

The report is available for download using the link on the right.

You can access the data tables here. The raw data is available on request: info@migrationpolicyscotland.org.uk