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The ethnic minority populations in the UK are growing substantially through immigration, a youthful age structure, and in some cases relatively high fertility. Their diverse demographic and socioeconomic characteristics have attracted considerable academic and policy attention, especially insofar as those distinctive characteristics have persisted in the generations born in the UK. No official projections of the UK ethnic populations have been published since 1979. This article provides projections to 2056 and beyond of 12 ethnic groups. Given overall net immigration and vital rates as assumed in the office for National Statistics 2008‐based Principal Projection, and the ethnic characteristics estimated here, the ethnic minority populations (including the Other White) would increase from 13 percent of the UK population in 2006 to 28 percent by 2031 and 44 percent by 2056, and to about half the 0–4 age group in 2056. Alternative projections assume various lower levels of immigration. Possible implications of projected changes are discussed.

The uneven timing of the demographic transition in different countries of the world will lead to divergence between countries in ethnic and religious homogeneity. Developed‐country populations that began their fertility transitions relatively early are becoming increasingly diverse with respect to the ethnic origin and religion of their inhabitants, primarily as a result of high recent levels of immigration. Many demographic patterns of the developed world, such as low death and birth rates, are becoming universal. It might be expected that less developed countries will also turn from emigration to experiencing immigration, as their populations age and their economies develop. This essay suggests, however, that future ethnic diversity arising from immigration may be less marked in many of those developing countries than in the West, especially among latecomers to the fertility transition. Five reasons are advanced as impediments to the globalization of ethnic heterogeneity arising from immigration: demographic, economic, political, and factors related to resource constraints, and climate change. The essay considers what social, economic, and political consequences might arise if high levels of ethnic diversity, and possibly ethnic replacement, remained an idiosyncratic peculiarity of today's developed countries, which would therefore diverge in important ways from the rest of the world as the twenty‐first century unfolds.