VIC Where British expats/immigrants live in Melbourne (popular suburbs)

Hi, this is for those who are interested in moving to Melbourne and are looking for help understanding Melbourne's vastly multicultural divide. UK born migrants are Australia's largest immigrant population. It looks like most UK expats choose Melbourne as their preferred city to live in because of the similarities with the UK. Melbourne really is the European city in Australia. Melbourne's striking Victorian style architecture and charming terrace houses really show our heritage and European core. Not to mention, Melbourne is home to the thriving Italian and Greek population in the cities North. This obviously further positions us as an attractive destination for more Europeans.

This is all unsurprising, considering Melbourne was once one of the largest cities and the wealthiest city in the entire British Empire. So not only is Melbourne attracting plenty of English people today but also underwent a similar development in the past, with a lot of Melburnians today having British ancestry.

So I thought it would be interesting to see where most British migrants love living in Melbourne and which are likely to be a safe bet for where to buy for new migrants. If you have any other suggestions, please post them below as I'm trying to find more popular areas.

The highest concentration of British migrants is along the bayside of Melbourne's south-east and more specifically on the Mornington Peninsula. The Mornington Peninsula is home to 4 of the top most desirable and popular suburbs for British buyers in Melbourne. Mount Eliza, Mornington, Mount Martha and Martha Cove are all home to the most British migrants in Melbourne. In fact, the population of English people is 13% in each suburb. However, Mount Eliza has the largest English population with the majority of " Australian " residents reporting they have English ancestry as well. Bangholme is also in Melbourne's south-east and is home to a large proportion of British people despite not being the hotspot.

The British are attracted to the the Mornington Peninsula's large blocks/homes, proximity to the beach and lifestyle of the popular holiday destination. What once was only an exclusively wealthy retiree area, is now attracting plenty of families from Melbourne's inner bayside and inner east. This English expat hotspot is also the most anglo area in Melbourne.

Also the affordability has been a deciding factor when compared to Melbourne. This is especially important for immigrants. However, popularity and property prices are also increasing rapidly in the area with a 20% increase house prices in the past year in the some of the suburbs stated above. The Mornington Peninsula was also the 2nd highest growth property market in Australia for 2017. The Mornington Peninsula is essentially the Hamptons in New York but in Melbourne. It is a very similar set up of a now expensive holiday area on the cities doorstep, offering the optimal lifestyle.

It may also be the case of the names because you will notice popular bayside suburbs of Melbourne such as Brighton, Shoreham, St Andrews Beach, Hastings, Queens Cliff and Torquay will sound awfully familiar to British expats. Plus, if you are going to live in Australia you may as well be near the beach, which the Mornington Peninsula provides some of the most desirable beaches in the state.

The weather is definitely more approachable for the British and Victoria is the garden state with the abundance of leafy suburbs in the cities east which is also an attraction. Now Victoria is also called the education state for the best schools and largest and top universities in the country. By the way, where the British live in Melbourne also tend to attract a lot of highly educated professionals. This is as well as Mount Eliza being home to two of Melbourne's top 50 highest ranked schools.

So these are clearly the best options for British migrants on where to buy. This is especially relevant for British families new to Melbourne. Hope this helps. Ask any questions and thoughts below.

 

Basically outer south and outer east Where Australia's immigrants were born: Melbourne | SBS World News

Poms (being mostly retired baby boomers) have retreated to outer beach and 'treechange' areas, after at one time being the largest migrant group in all but small inner suburban pockets.

 

The western suburbs, in the main, have barely any British migration. Werribee is an exception to that.

Geelong’s northern suburbs also have a high amount of British migrants.

 

Thanks for your thought!

Werribee does have an English population however it only makes up approximately 3% of Werribee and Werribee South’s population. Indians are actually to dominant migrant group in that surrounding area. Nevertheless, Werribee is closer to the bay and affordable, so this may explain the attraction.

Batesford, Avalon, Lara, Anakie and Corio have the largest % of English in Northern Geelong however this is still only 4% on average which isn’t a lot. In the rest of Geelong’s northern suburbs, the British only compromise a very low 2%. In fact, Northern Geelong is well know for their Croatian and to a lesser extend Italian population. These are also high migrant groups.

Near Geelong, English migrants are actually higher on the Bellarine Peninsula than in actual Geelong. This again could be because of the growing demand for lifestyle similar to the Mornington Peninsula. The closest suburb to Geelong city with the largest proportion of English migrants appears to be Ceres near Highton with 6% of residents being British.

 

Frankston South is also a 5th suburb nearby the Mornington Peninsula with a large British population. This further supports the Mornington area as being the hotspot.

 

I can't say all Melbourne British migrants are retired baby boomers because 35% of British migrants are actually families with children and 34% are couples with now children. This further explains the popularity of the Mornington Peninsula. So almost 70% are young families. I agree you can really see the shift in popularity of beach and 'treechange' areas on the Mornington Peninsula.

 

7.5% of the population is British on the Mornington Peninsula. This is a large proportion for such a large area. The other high migrant groups definitely show the attraction of the area to Europeans.
You can find out more here

 

This is the actual page for the Mornington Peninsula with the statistic

 

Hey there John, I’m interested to see those stats. Did you get them from the ABS?

I’ve worked in Corio over the past 2yrs. I grew up in Melbourne’s north west, where there is a large Italian and Croatian population, so maybe the Italian/Croatian population seems more ‘usual’ to me compared to people of UK heritage - so I notice people from the UK more.

Definitely Lara, Corio and Bell Post Hill anecdotally seem to have a fair few UK migrants. Not so much Norlane - Norlane West in particular seems to have more Croatian/Italians like you mention. Corio also has seemingly many Dutch migrants (@Peter_Tersteeg mentioned once that’s due to having the Shell refinery in the area).

That said - now that I think about it, everyone that I know from the UK that live in Werribee live south of Synnot or in Werribee South. In Hoppers (further from the bay) it seems pretty rare to see people from the UK, it’s mainly people of Mediterranean heritage like myself, Indian heritage or Anglo-Australian.

 

This may take a while but to work out where most of those expats live, take a walk around each suburb and listen out for an extraordinary amount of irritating whinging lol.

 

Thanks for sharing! The stats show that it is true that Corio and Lara have notable English populations when compared to other northern suburbs in Geelong. However, Bell Post Hill and Bell Park appear to be the centre of a large Croatian community. The English don't even come into the top 3 in these suburbs. Strangely, Norlane's top migrant group is actually stated as being British however note it is a small %. You are also right, Corio's 2nd top migrant group is Dutch. Interestingly, you'll notice North Shore's largest migrant group is also Dutch.

You can definitely see the decreasing dominance of the English migrant group as you move further away from the bay in the stats around Werribee. I'm clearly not as familiar with these areas as you are. You can see the stats for yourself here which are based on ABS data.

 

One day i hope to increase Norlane West's Filipino community by one!!

 

Why does British immigration matter? I have heard stories about Brits in North Lakes going back home because the weather is too hot, there's not enough rain and, wait for it, the birds chirp too loudly.

 

Brits have typically favoured Bayside and the better off inner suburbs, but due to the relative decline of the UK economy, weaker pound and low house price growth in most of Britain in the last 10 years, many new migrants from Britain have found themselves relatively less well off than the migrants of years past - most if them can't afford to buy into blue chip areas nowadays, and tend to to buy into better value regional or outer suburban areas.

 

This would make sense as even the more affordable areas on the Mornington Peninsula have a sizeable British migrant population.