We are Filipinos living and working in Leeds, United Kingdom. To view the Leeds Filipino Community site, please click the red button on the right.
The City of Leeds is a metropolitan borough with city status within the metropolitan county of West Yorkshire, England. It is named after its major settlement and is a member of the English Core Cities Group. It stretches from Otley and Wetherby in the north bordering North Yorkshire; In the south, it is bordered by the City of Wakefield; Pudsey and the City of Bradford borders the west; and in the east, it is bordered by Garforth and Micklefield.
The United Kingdom had only a small population of Filipinos until the late 20th century. The population of Filipinos in the UK skyrocketed from less than 20,000 in the mid 1980's to over 200,000 in the mid 2000's. It is estimated that five (5) Filipino British people are born into the UK every day. The number started to grow in the 1970’s when immigration restrictions on Commonwealth citizens meant that employers had to find workers from other countries. This led to the recruitment of Filipinos for the National Health Service (NHS), hotel and catering industry, and clothing manufacturers. The NHS started to recruit more Filipino nurses in the 1990s to make up a shortfall in local recruitment. A large number of Filipinos have also arrived as caregivers and work in public and private nursing homes.
Filipinos were the United Kingdom's fourth largest source of immigrants in 2006. The British-Filipino is the largest Filipino community outside of Asia and North America, and the seventh largest overseas community overall. They are the only non-Hispanic ethnic group with Spanish surnames next to Spanish Britons and Latin American Britons (except Brazilian Britons).
Most Filipinos in the United Kingdom live and work in urbanised areas. The largest Filipino community in the United Kingdom is in and around London, based around Earl's Court. Other towns and cities with significant Filipino communities include Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Barrow-in-Furness, which is home to an extremely successful Filipino community, as well as being the country's largest for a town of its size. Anecdotal evidence shows that the Filipino community in Britain is not as cohesive as others around the world, such as Filipino-Americans and Filipinos in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, Filipino Britons have their share of community groups.
Source: Wikipedia