During 2020, immigration basically stopped but those people still wanted to come here. So after the borders opened again, there was a rush on visas. I'm not that surprised about the jump.
What I am surprised about is the natural increase being under 20,000. I would have expected closer to 30,000. I don't exactly keep a close eye on these things though.
The births are lower than I expected, by a couple of thousand, but I think I just haven't looked at it for a while. They used to hover just over 60,000. But 38,574 deaths in 2022 is massive. I didn't realise what an impact COVID had! 2019 had about 34,000 deaths (and 2020 about 32,000 deaths, because everyone stayed home).