nigerians in the uk
Nigerians In The UK are the doctors, students, carers, traders and dreamers who left home for Britain and still send money, ideas and jollof recipes back.
In plain English
So why does that transfer to your cousin in Lagos cost so much, and why does everyone back home think you are suddenly rich the moment you land at Heathrow?
That is the question sitting under almost every conversation Nigerians in the UK have with family back home, and it deserves a proper answer, more than a sigh and a change of subject.
Nigerians in the UK are not one single story. Some came as students in the 1960s and stayed. Some arrived on skilled worker visas as nurses and care workers in the last few years, filling gaps the NHS and care homes desperately needed filled. Others came as children, grew up in Peckham or Manchester, and now speak English with a London accent but jollof rice with full Naija authority.
What ties them together is the constant back and forth. Money moves from the UK to Nigeria in the form of remittances, supporting parents, paying school fees for younger siblings, contributing to a family building project in Enugu that has been going on for six years. Ideas move too, in both directions. Someone learns about pensions and ISAs in London and starts asking why nobody talks about retirement planning like that in Lagos. Someone else brings the hustle and resourcefulness of Nigerian life into a British workplace that badly needed a bit more of it.
There is also the tax and paperwork side that nobody warns you about early enough. Once you are a UK tax resident, HMRC expects you to declare worldwide income, which includes that rental property in Abuja or the small business your mother runs in Onitsha that occasionally sends you a cut. Getting this wrong is not deliberate crime, it is usually just nobody explained it properly.
And underneath all of it is the identity question that never fully settles. British enough for a passport, Nigerian enough that your aunty still expects you to greet her properly on video call. Both things are true at once, and that is not confusion, that is simply what it means to belong in two places.
A nurse in Leeds earning £2,400 a month sends £150 home to her mother in Ibadan every month through a transfer app, which lands as roughly ₦280,000 depending on the exchange rate that week, enough to cover feeding, light bills and a small contribution to her younger brother's WAEC fees.
Questions people ask
Do Nigerians in the UK need to pay tax on money earned in Nigeria too?
If you are classed as UK tax resident, HMRC generally expects you to declare worldwide income, including rent or business earnings from Nigeria, though double taxation relief can prevent you being taxed twice on the same money, so it is worth checking your residency status properly rather than guessing.
What is the cheapest way to send money from the UK to Nigeria?
Bank transfers are usually the most expensive route because of poor exchange rates and fixed fees, while dedicated transfer apps often give a better rate and lower charges, so comparing two or three services before sending a large amount can save real money.
Why do UK based Nigerians sometimes feel torn between two identities?
It usually comes from living genuinely in both cultures at once rather than choosing one, and that dual belonging is normal and not a problem to solve, it is simply the honest shape of a life lived across two countries.
Last reviewed