The most spoken language in the UK is English, but what comes next? The census from 2021 indicated that there’s another language which many people living in Wales and England speak, but it’s not one you’ll easily guess.
You might think French or Spanish might be popular but they don’t take the top spot. Instead, Polish is still the most popular foreign language in the two nations. While 91.9% of residents speak English, the most common foreign language hasn’t changed since 2011.
Being the first language for 1.1% of the population, Polish remains the most popular foreign language in England and Wales, reports Atlas Translations.
After this, the census revealed that Romanian held the second spot.
This is up 17 positions from the previous census in 2011.
In the top five are Punjabi and Urdu, which are still some of the most popular languages. In comparison, Bengali and Gujarati dropped a few places.
At number five is Portuguese, which increased in the 2021 census.
According to Statista, in the 2021 census there were around 52.6 million people surveyed.
The amount of people choosing English as their first language was down from 92.3% of the population in 2011.
It says: “The most common non-English language spoken in England and Wales as of 2021 was Polish, which had 611,845 speakers, followed by Romanian at 471,954 speakers, and Panjabi with 290,745 speakers.
“As the nation’s capital, perhaps it is unsurprising that London is the most linguistically multicultural part of England and Wales.
“The three local authorities with the highest share of people reporting a foreign language as their main language were all London Boroughs (Newham, Brent, and Ealing).”
A full list of the top 10 most spoken foreign languages in England and Wales:
Polish
Romanian
Punjabi
Urdu
Portuguese
Spanish
Arabic
Bengali
Gujarati
Italian
