Tens of thousands of Romanians and Bulgarians have come to the UK to work since restrictions were lifted

Net migration has reached a record 336,000 as figures published yesterday showed that Romanians are now the third biggest group coming to the UK.

Officials said the latest increase was driven by a “statistically significant” rise in the overall number of immigrants, with many of them arriving to take up jobs. The surge was partly because of a 61 per cent rise in the number of Romanians and Bulgarians coming to the UK for more than a year in the 12 months to June.

Romania entered the top five nations sending migrants to the UK for the first time this year, behind India and China, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. Net migration is defined as the difference between the number of