Albanians in the United Kingdom

The history of Albanians in Britain began in the 16th century with the arrival of mercenary stratioti cavalry[2] who served the English king in his wars against the Kingdom of Scotland.

The history of modern-day Albanians in the UK began in the early 20th century, when a small group of Albanians arrived in this country. Among them was one of the greatest Albanian intellectuals, Faik Konica, who moved to London and continued to publish the magazine Albania, which he had founded in Brussels.[3] Shortly after World War II, there were about 100 Albanians in Britain. Most of them were from Albania, while very few were from Kosovo.

The 1991 census recorded only 338 Albanians in England. In 1993, the figure had risen to 2,500. Most of them were young Kosovars who avoided recruiting into the Yugoslav Army, who had sought political asylum. In June 1996, a Supreme Court decision accepted that Kosovo Albanians were persecuted in the former Yugoslavia. This meant that all Kosovo Albanians should be granted residence permits in Britain. After this decision, Britain faced a huge and unexpected influx of Albanians from Kosovo, Albania, the Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. By the end of 1997, around 30,000 Albanians lived in Britain.

A mapping exercise published by the International Organization for Migration in September 2008 states that there were no official estimates of the total number of ethnic Albanians in the UK at the time. The majority of respondents interviewed for the exercise estimated the population to lie between 70,000 and 100,000.[1]

The 2011 Census recorded 13,295 Albanian-born residents in England and 120 in Wales,[4] The censuses of Scotland and Northern Ireland recorded 196 and 55 Albanian-born residents respectively.[5][6] The census recorded 28,390 Kosovo-born residents (including people all ethnicities) in England and 56 in Wales.[4] The censuses of Scotland and Northern Ireland recorded 215 and 44 Kosovo-born residents respectively.[5][6] In 2019, the Office for National Statistics estimated that 47,000 people born in Albania and 29,000 people born in Kosovo were resident in the UK.[7]

Albanians are amongst the largest groups of irregular immigrants in the UK, and Albanian children are the second largest group receiving help from Barnardo's child trafficking support teams.[8] In 2010, Albanians were not seen as a significantly at-risk group, but in 2015 Barnardo's estimated that Albanians accounted for a quarter of children allocated an advocate under its child trafficking support scheme. Some are forced to work, particularly on building sites, but the majority are exploited for criminal activities.[9]

Albanians seeking asylum in the UK regularly cite blood feuds as the reason that it is unsafe for them to return to Albania. The number of Albanian asylum applicants rose from 173 in 2008 to 1,809 in 2015. The vast majority of these applications are rejected.[10][11]

In June 2017, the National Crime Agency's annual report on organized crime warned that Albanian criminal gangs had "established a high-profile influence within UK organized crime", focusing mainly on the trafficking of cocaine to London. The report noted that "The threat faced from Albanian crime groups is significant. London is their primary hub, but they are established across the UK". It also noted that only 0.8% of organized criminals in the UK are Albanians, with British nationals accounting for 61.6% (23.5% are of unknown nationality). Albanian organized criminals display a readiness to use serious violence, which according to the National Crime Agency makes their impact more troubling, however.[8]

Between April 2015 and April 2019, 6,200 Albanian nationals were deported from the UK to Albania. This was the highest number of any nationality over this period. Many of these deportees are reported to be from the counties of Shkodër, Kukës and Dibër, from where British-based drugs gangs recruit.[12]

• Albania–United Kingdom relations
• Kosovans in the United Kingdom