Kenyan migration to the United Kingdom has been occurring for many decades. As a result, many people in the UK were born in Kenya, or have Kenyan ancestry. Many Kenyan people who migrated to the UK are of South Asian extraction.
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Background
Most Kenyans in the UK are ethnically South Asian Kenyans who, like those in Uganda, were forced out during the late 1960s and early 1970s. This community has a substantial cluster in Leicester and London. The most recent growth may now be coming from ethnically black African Kenyans, mirroring wider trends across the continent of economic migration to the richer industrialised nations. There are also a small number of Kenyan-born people who are the children of British civil servants based there before the end of the Empire.
Demographics
The 2001 UK Census recorded 129,633 Kenyan-born British residents. The equivalent figure in 2009 has been estimated at 203,000 by the Office for National Statistics.
The largest proportion of Kenyan-born British residents are found in the capital, London, where around half of the Kenyan-born population in Britain resides. There are also significant populations in the South East and the East Midlands.