Where People Are Moving To In Wales In 2026

Wales's population fell by roughly 2,800 people in the year to mid-2025, a 0.1% decrease and the country's first population decline since mid-2015. That headline number reflects an aging population where deaths outpace births, and it hides a real growth story underneath. Sixteen of Wales's 22 local authorities gained residents through internal migration in the same year. Within those authorities, growth is concentrated in specific towns and cities rather than spread evenly across the countryside. Newport and Cardiff, the two local authorities that are also single cities, posted the fastest population growth of any areas in Wales over the last census decade, at 9.5% and 4.7% respectively. Up in north Denbighshire, that same growth is concentrated almost entirely in the coastal towns of Rhyl and Prestatyn, while in the Vale of Glamorgan, it centers on Barry, the county's largest town. None of this is a population boom on the scale of Cardiff's early-2010s growth years; it's a smaller, more localized redistribution, and these five places have the clearest data to back them up.

Newport

Newport's population grew 9.5% between the 2011 and 2021 censuses, from around 145,700 to 159,600. That was the fastest rate of any local authority in Wales, and Newport posted the country's largest percentage population increase again in the year to mid-2025. It was also one of only two Welsh local authorities, along with Cardiff, where births outnumbered deaths that year. The city sits at the center of Wales's compound semiconductor cluster, home to Vishay Newport, the UK's largest semiconductor facility. Vishay's £142 million ($177 million) 2023 acquisition of the former Newport Wafer Fab site brought hundreds of skilled jobs to the city. A short distance away at Celtic Lakes, KLA opened a $138 million R&D and manufacturing center in Newport in May 2025, with capacity for up to 750 employees. Newport also sits on the South Wales Main Line, with direct rail service into Cardiff, Bristol, and London. New arrivals get a commuter option that's still within reach of the capital's job market without Cardiff's price tag.

Cardiff

Cardiff's population grew 4.7% between the 2011 and 2021 censuses, from around 346,100 to 362,400, the second-fastest rate in Wales. Its population is projected to increase by 10.5% between 2022 and 2032, while its number of households is projected to rise by 11.1%. Cardiff was also the other local authority, along with Newport, where births outnumbered deaths in the year to mid-2025. Much of the new housing is going up along the River Taff. Central Quay, a 2.5-million-square-foot mixed-use development just south of Cardiff Central railway station, will bring roughly 1,000 flats alongside office space, restaurants, and shops on the former SA Brain Brewery site, and the city council is moving to acquire land there for affordable housing. A few minutes downstream, developers behind the Atlantic Wharf masterplan are reshaping Cardiff Bay with new offices, a hotel, and homes tied to the relocation of County Hall. The wider Cardiff Capital Region shows the same pull: financial and business services jobs concentrated in the capital draw residents from the rest of south-east Wales, even as some Cardiff natives move outward to more affordable neighbors like Newport and Barry.

Rhyl

Rhyl's population grew by 8.1% between 2011 and 2022, from about 25,100 to 27,200, more than double Denbighshire's 3.1% growth rate, the local authority in which it sits. Once a fading Victorian seaside resort, Rhyl is now the focal point of a 10-year, £20 million Pride and Place regeneration program approved by Denbighshire councilors, layered on top of an earlier £13 million Leveling-Up Fund award and a completed promenade upgrade along the seafront. The council has redeveloped the former Queen's Market into a mixed-use retail building with food stalls and event space, and under a separate £4.6 million project it has converted empty town-center properties into affordable flats, including homes reserved for residents over 55. For people priced out of North Wales's coastal towns like Llandudno and Conwy, or relocating from England's Cheshire and Merseyside borders, Rhyl's regeneration-in-progress means a lower cost of entry, and the town's growing population already bears that out.

Prestatyn

Prestatyn, Rhyl's neighboring seaside town just three miles east along the same stretch of coast, had a population of 19,085 at the 2021 census and takes part in the same wave of Denbighshire investment. Denbighshire County Council treats the two towns as a single functional area for regeneration purposes. Still, each benefits from major, separate coastal defense projects designed to reduce flood risk along Denbighshire's coastline, funded by the Welsh Government and the council. Prestatyn's town center has seen smaller-scale but steady investment of its own, including public realm upgrades near its retail park and infill housing on council-owned land. The Offa's Dyke Path, a 177-mile national trail, ends at Prestatyn's coast, and the town links to the Wales Coast Path, a built-in draw for outdoor-oriented movers. Between the two towns, Denbighshire's coast accounts for a larger share of the county's growth than its rural interior.

Barry

Barry's population grew 4.7% between 2011 and 2022, from around 54,700 to about 57,200, keeping pace with the Vale of Glamorgan overall, which is projected to see the third-largest percentage population increase of any Welsh local authority by 2032, behind only Cardiff and Newport. Planners have directed much of that future growth to Barry, the Vale's largest town. Under the council's Replacement Local Development Plan, roughly 8,660 new homes are allocated across sites, including north west Barry, Rhoose, and St Athan. Direct trains run to Cardiff Central every 20 to 30 minutes, a ride of about 25 minutes, and developers have carried out waterfront regeneration around Barry Island and the former docks. The town's population skews slightly younger than the rest of the Vale, with a median age of 40 compared to the local authority's 44, consistent with a place taking in family-age arrivals rather than retirees. Council officials have flagged the pace of growth as a budgetary concern, given an aging population elsewhere in the Vale. For now, Barry remains a landing spot for overspill from a growing capital next door.

Wales's Next Growth Corridor

Wales's growth right now isn't happening evenly or across the board. It's concentrated in specific cities and towns: Newport and Cardiff along the M4 corridor, Barry just down the coast as the outlet for Cardiff's overspill, and Rhyl and Prestatyn on a regenerating stretch of Denbighshire's north coast. Six of Wales's 22 local authorities still lost population to internal migration in the year to mid-2025, and the country as a whole saw its first overall population decline in a decade, a reminder that growth in these five places is redistribution rather than a broad-based boom. For residents of south-east Wales in particular, that means continued pressure on housing supply and infrastructure in Cardiff's orbit, even as more people now move out of the capital rather than only into it.