It is known that Romani (Gypsy) groups such as the Romanichal and Kale arrived in the region during the Middle Ages, having originated from what is now North India and Pakistan and traveled westward to Europe via Southwest Asia around 1000 CE, intermingling with local populations over several centuries.

[24] During the colonial era, Asians continued coming to Britain as seamen, traders, students, domestic workers, cricketers, political officials and visitors and some of them settled in the region.

[28] Most early Pakistani settlers (then part of the British India Empire) and their families moved from port towns to the Midlands, as Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, many expatriates mainly hailing from the city of Mirpur worked in munitions factories in Birmingham.

[59] The ten local authorities with the largest proportion of people who identified as Pakistani were: Pendle (25.59%), Bradford (25.54%), Slough (21.65%), Luton (18.26%), Blackburn with Darwen (17.79%), Birmingham (17.04%), Redbridge (14.18%), Rochdale (13.64%), Oldham (13.55%) and Hyndburn (13.16%).

[64] The majority of British Pakistanis originate from the Azad Kashmir and Punjab regions, with a smaller number from other parts of Pakistan including Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan and Balochistan.

The distribution of people describing their ethnicity as Pakistani in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland was as follows:[60][3][2] Middlesbrough - 6.2% Stockton-On-Tees - 2.5% Rochdale - 13.6% Oldham - 13.5% Blackburn With Darwen - 17.8% Pendle - 25.6% Burnley - 10.7% Bury - 7.8% Bolton - 9.4% Hyndburn - 13.2% Kirklees - 12.6% Calderdale - 8.5% Sheffield - 5.0% Leeds - 3.9% Nottingham - 6.7% Leicester - 3.4% Oadby and Wigston - 4.0% Walsall - 6.9% Stoke-On-Trent - 6.0% Dudley - 4.6% Sandwell - 6.5% East Staffordshire - 7.0% Peterborough - 7.9% Watford - 8.0% London Borough of Newham - 8.9% London Borough of Redbridge - 14.2% Buckinghamshire - 5.3% Woking - 7.0% Crawley - 5.2% Reading - 4.8% Oxford - 4.1% Windsor and Maidenhead - 4.0% Edinburgh - 1.5% East Renfrewshire - 5.3% North Lanarkshire - 1.5% Newport - 3.0% Greater London has the largest Pakistani community in the United Kingdom.

[75] The late Professor Pnina Werbner associated the suburban movement of Pakistani-origin Muslims in Manchester with the formation of "gilded ghettoes" in the sought-after commuter suburbs of Cheshire.

[81][82] According to Sajid Mansoor Qaisrani, Urdu language periodicals of the 1990s published in UK used to focus exclusively on South Asian issues, with no relevance to British society.

[105][106] In 2009, the Birmingham City Council attempted to trademark the Balti dish to give the curry Protected Geographical Status alongside items such as luxury cheese and champagne.

[108][109] Chicken tikka masala has long been amongst the nation's favourite dishes and is claimed to have been invented by a Pakistani chef in Glasgow, though its origins remain disputed.

[163] Around 70% of all British Pakistanis trace their origins to the administrative territory of Azad Kashmir in northeastern Pakistan, mainly from the Mirpur, Kotli and Bhimber districts.

[164][165] Christopher Snedden writes that most of the native residents of Azad Kashmir are not of Kashmiri ethnicity; rather, they could be called "Jammuites" due to their historical and cultural links with that region, which is coterminous with neighbouring Punjab and Hazara.

[7] Migration from Jammu and Kashmir began soon after the Second World War as the majority of the male population of this area and the Potohar region worked in the British armed forces, as well as to fill labour shortages in industry.

[7][175] British Punjabis are commonly found in the south of England, the Midlands, and the major cities in the north (with smaller minorities in former mill towns in Lancashire and Yorkshire).

[33] Altaf Hussain, leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)—the largest political party in Karachi, with its roots lying in the Muhajir community—has been based in England in self-imposed exile since 1992.

A study showed that British-Pakistani women faced cultural and language barriers and were not aware that breast screening takes place in a female-only environment.

[209] The tribes to which British Pakistanis belong include Jats, Ahirs, Gujjars, Awans, Arains, Rajputs and several others, all of whom are spread throughout Pakistan and north India.

[214] 60% of the Pakistani forced marriages handled by the British High Commission assistance unit in Islamabad are linked to the small towns of Bhimber and Kotli and the region of Mirpur in Azad Kashmir.

A lack of historical data on the ethnicity of perpetrators makes it difficult to judge whether the role of British-Pakistani gangs in sexual offences against children has changed over time.

This is because cities like London, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow and Oxford have provided a more economically encouraging environment than the small towns in Lancashire and Yorkshire.

[37] On the other hand, the decline in the British textile boom brought about economic disparities for Pakistanis who worked and settled in the smaller mill towns following the 1960s, with properties failing to appreciate enough and incomes having shrunk.

[253] Sir Anwar Pervez, owner of one of the UK's largest companies, the Bestway group,[254] and his family have assets of £1.364 billion, placing them 125th on the Sunday Times Rich List 2021.

[267] The Economist has argued that the lack of a second income in households was "the main reason" why many Bangladeshi and Pakistani families live below the poverty line and the resulting high proportion reliant on welfare payments from the government.

As these renters settled in Britain and prospered to the point where they could afford to buy their own homes, non-Asian university students became these landlords' main potential customers.

[301][302] British Pakistanis involved in print media include Sarfraz Manzoor, who is a regular columnist for The Guardian,[303] one of the largest and most popular newspaper groups in the UK.

[319] Notable British Pakistanis in the House of Lords includes Minister for Faith and Communities and former chairman of the Conservative Party Sayeeda Warsi,[320] Tariq Ahmad, Nazir Ahmed,[321][322] and Qurban Hussain.

[325] Other politicians in Pakistan known to have held dual British citizenship include Rehman Malik,[326] Ishrat-ul-Ibad Khan,[327] and some members of the Pakistani national and provincial legislative assemblies.

[349] High-profile British Pakistani politicians within the Labour Party include Shahid Malik and Lord Nazir Ahmed, who became the first Muslim life peer in 1998.

[376] The Anti-Nazi League held a counter protest to a proposed march by the NF leading to clashes between police and the local South Asian population, with the majority of those being involved being of Pakistani descent.

[377][378] Starting in the late 1960s,[379] and peaking in the 1970s and 1980s, violent gangs opposed to immigration took part in frequent attacks known as "Paki-bashing", which targeted and assaulted Pakistanis and other South Asians.