Around 22,000 Romanian workers are interested in coming to the UK – but Britain is not the top European destination for would-be migrants from the country, The Daily Telegraph reports.

This figure is according to independent research seen by the paper by a Romania think-tank, which shows that 7% of the country’s working age population wishes to work abroad in the EU, and 8% of those wanted to work in the UK and to move over in the next six months.

The news comes after the revelation earlier this year that the UK government was considering a media campaign designed to put off Bulgarian and Romanian citizens interested in working in the UK when migration restrictions are relaxed next year.

The UK government has given out mixed messages around expectations of how many people are likely to come to the UK, and is seen as being cautious after estimates of the number of Poles that would come to the country after Poland joined the EU in 2004 were much lower than reality, with the number of Poles in the UK jumping from 75,000 in 2003 to 532,000 in 2010.

Romania’s ambassador in London Ion Jinga comments that the research confirms “the UK is not a preferred destination for Romanians seeking a job”, telling The Daily Telegraph he believes the more realistic figure is between 15,000 and 20,000.

Sir Andrew Green, chair of campaign group MigrationWatch, told the paper: “What these calculations completely omit is the presence of 2m Romanians in Spain and Italy where there are high levels of unemployment. There must be a significant risk that they will decide to relocate to Northern European countries such as Germany, the UK and the Netherlands next year.”