This is a list of notable people of Sri Lankan descent living in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. " Sri Lankan Britons" refers to all Sri Lankan ethnic groups.

Business and Industry

Most of the Srilankan Britons are doing businesses such as

cornershop Cornershop are a British indie rock band best known for their single "Brimful of Asha", originally released in 1997 and, in a remixed version, topping the UK chart in 1998. The band was formed in 1991 by Wolverhampton-born Tjinder Singh (singe ...

s ,

petrol stations A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Gasoline ...

s ,

restaurants A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearanc ...

jewellery store A jewellery store (American English: jewelry store) is a retail business establishment, that specializes in selling (and also buying) jewellery and watch A watch is a portable timepiece intended to be carried or worn by a person. It is desi ...

textiles Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...

, etc. *

Subaskaran Allirajah Subaskaran Allirajah (born 2 March 1972) is a British-Sri Lankan Tamil entrepreneur. He is the founder and chairman of Lycamobile, a telecommunications company. He is also a producer of Tamil films through his entertainment subsidiary Lyca Prod ...

, businessman and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

, founder of the

Lycamobile Lycamobile is a British mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) operating in 60 countries. The brand is active in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal ...

, world's largest

MVNO A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobile ...

based in UK. *

Karunamoorthy Ayngaran International is a film distribution and film production, production company, based in the United Kingdom. Historically, Tamil cinema, Tamil films from India have been distributed to overseas theaters and for home media consumption by ...

, film producer and founder of

Ayngaran International Ayngaran International is a film distribution and production company, based in the United Kingdom. Historically, Tamil films from India have been distributed to overseas theaters and for home media consumption by Ayngaran. The chairman of the ...

. * Arjuna Sittampalam, financier. *

Ratheesan Yoganathan Ratheesan Yoganathan (born 6 December 1975) is a British entrepreneur who, with Rasiah Ranjith Leon and Baskaran Kandiah, is best known as the co-founder of Lebara Group. On 10 August 2012 he took on the role of ex Chairman of Lebara Group an ...

, British

, and founder of the

Lebara Lebara Group is a telecommunications company providing services using the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) business model in the United Kingdom, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland and Australia. Leb ...

Academic

Nishan Canagarajah Cedric Nishan Canagarajah (born 1966) is a British Tamil academic and the current president and vice-chancellor of the University of Leicester. He was previously one of the pro-vice-chancellors of the University of Bristol. Early life and family ...

Abhaya Induruwa Abhaya Induruwa ( si, අභය ඉඳුරුව) is the inaugural Professor V K Samaranayake Endowed Professor of Computing, University of Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka. Having served as the Director of Cyber Innovation Hub he rece ...

Sunitha Wickramasinghe Sunitha Wickramasinghe, FRCP FRCPath was a Sri Lankan born British academic and haematologist. A Professor of Haematology, he was the former Deputy Dean of the Imperial College School of Medicine and one of the world's leading authorities on c ...

Actors

Jai Akash Jai Akash, also known as Akash, is an Indian actor, who acted as hero in Telugu and Tamil films. He has acted in a Kannada film as hero too. He is the hero of the Telugu blockbuster movie Anandam ''Anandam'' (2001). Career Jai Sathish, a Tamil ...

Tony Jayawardena Anthony Surath Jayawardena is a British actor, known for his roles as Mr Bhamra in the West End musical '' Bend It Like Beckham the Musical'' and for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe and Royal National Theatre. I ...

Amara Karan Amara Karunakaran (born 1984), known professionally as Amara Karan, is an English actress who made her film début as Rita in Wes Anderson's '' The Darjeeling Limited''. The film premièred at the 2007 Venice Film Festival. Karan's second film r ...

Albert Moses Albert Moses, KStJ (19 December 1937 – 15 September 2017) was a Sri Lankan actor based in the United Kingdom. He is best known for playing the role of Ranjeet Singh, a student in Jeremy Brown's EFL class in the popular British sitcom ''Mind Yo ...

Romesh Ranganathan Jonathan Romesh Ranganathan (born 27 March 1978), is an English actor and comedian. He is known for his deadpan and often self-deprecating comedy. Ranganathan has made numerous appearances on television comedy panel shows, and in 2016 he co-p ...

, British stand-up comedian, actor and presenter. *

Kim Vithana Kim Vithana (born 4 June 1970) is a British actress. She had acted in television serials '' Family Pride'', '' Specials'' and '' Firm Friends'' when the filmmaker Gurinder Chadha took her in ''Bhaji on the Beach'' to play the role of Ginder, a ...

Engineers

Cecil Balmond Cecil Balmond OBE is a Sri Lankan–British designer, artist, and writer. In 1968 Balmond joined Ove Arup & Partners, leading him to become deputy chairman. In 2000 he founded design and research group, the AGU (Advanced Geometry Unit). He cu ...

Shini Somara Shini Somara (born Shini Somarathne, on 30 July 1979) is a British mechanical engineer, media broadcaster, producer and author. She has presented '' TechKnow'' on Al Jazeera America and reporting for various BBC shows including ''The Health Sho ...

Kanagaratnam Sriskandan Kanagaratnam Sriskandan (12 August 1930 – 21 April 2010) was a Sri Lankan born British engineer and civil servant. He was the former Chief Highway Engineer, of Under Secretary Grade at the British Department for Transport Sriskandan receive ...

Lawyers

Desmond Lorenz de Silva Sir George Desmond Lorenz de Silva, (13 December 1939 – 2 June 2018) was a British criminal law barrister and international lawyer who served as the United Nations Chief War Crimes Prosecutor in Sierra Leone. Early life Desmond de Silva was ...

Media

Tamil media like

IBC Tamil IBC Tamil (The International Broadcasting Corporation for Tamil) is a mass media company offering 24-hour television, radio and online services to the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora. Headquartered in London, the company is licensed and regulated under ...

Deepam TV Deepam TV is a UK-based Tamil Channel in Europe Tamil language digital satellite Free to Air (FTA). Its main audience are Sri Lankan Tamils and Indian Tamil living in Europe and the Middle East. The channel was launched in June 2000. The ch ...

are headquartered in UK. *

George Alagiah George Maxwell Alagiah ( born 22 November 1955) is a British newsreader, journalist and television news presenter. Since 3 December 2007, he has been the presenter of the ''BBC News at Six'' and was previously the main presenter of ''GMT'' on ...

* Nigel Barker *

Suranga Chandratillake Suranga Chandratillake (born October 1977 in Kandy, Sri Lanka) is the founder and former CEO of blinkx, the San Francisco-based video search and advertising company which later became RhythmOne. After eight years as CEO and taking blinkx public, ...

James Coomarasamy James Coomarasamy is a British presenter of the BBC Radio 4 evening programme ''The World Tonight'' and the flagship '' Newshour'' programme on the BBC World Service. Before joining ''Newshour'' in 2010, Coomarasamy spent a year presenting th ...

Rasantha Cooray ''Lanka Tribune'' is a fortnightly free community newspaper published for Sri Lankans in the United Kingdom. The newspaper was launched in the UK in 2007 in compact size. The newspaper is edited by Rasantha Cooray and published in Harrow, M ...

Vernon Corea Vernon Corea (11 September 1927 – 23 September 2002) was a pioneer radio broadcaster with 45 years of public service broadcasting both in Sri Lanka and the UK. He joined Radio Ceylon, South Asia's oldest radio station, in 1956 and later the Sr ...

* Darshini David *

Elmo Fernando Elmo Fernando (died 11 August 2016) was a popular announcer with Radio Ceylon and subsequently the Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation. Fernando was an excellent reader of the news. He joined Radio Ceylon, the oldest radio station in South Asia at a t ...

Christopher Greet Christopher Arthur Greet (12 June 1932 – 28 December 2020) was an actor and radio presenter. He is best known for his work alongside Victoria Wood in the 1998 BBC comedy series ''Dinnerladies (TV series), dinnerladies''. Early life Greet was ...

* Rohan Jayasekera *

Neville Jayaweera Neville Jayaweera (23 October 1930 - 10 May 2020) was a member of the Ceylon Civil Service (1955-1972). He was handpicked by the Prime Minister of Ceylon, Dudley Senanayake, to be both Chairman and Director-General of the Ceylon Broadcasting C ...

Tim Kash Tim Kash is a British television presenter best known for formerly presenting ''Top of the Pops'' in the United Kingdom, and '' MTV News'' on MTV UK and Ireland. He appeared on the U.S. edition of ''MTV News'', and as a presenter on E! Network's ...

Military

Jack Churchill John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill, (16 September 1906 – 8 March 1996) was a British Army officer who fought in the Second World War with a longbow, a Scottish broadsword, and a bagpipe. Nicknamed "Fighting Jack Churchill" and "Mad Jack" ...

Cyril Nicholas Captain Cyril Wace Nicholas, MC, KRR (1898–1961) was a Ceylonese soldier, civil servant and forester. He was the first Warden of the Wild Life Department. Early life and service Educated at the Royal College, Colombo, he went on to study at t ...

Musicians

Arjun Coomaraswamy Arjun Coomaraswamy, known professionally as Arjun, is an English-Sri Lankan singer, songwriter, record producer and actor. He was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka and raised in London. Career Arjun rose to attention following an R&B cover version ...

Beverley Craven Beverley Craven (born 28 July 1963) is a British singer-songwriter best known for her 1991 UK hit single " Promise Me". Her album '' Change of Heart'' was released in 2014 and '' Mixed Emotions'' in 1999. Biography Early life Craven was born ...

Rohan de Saram Deshamanya Rohan de Saram (born 9 March 1939) is a British-born Sri Lankan cellist. Until his 30s, he made his name as a classical artist, but has since become renowned for his involvement in and advocacy of contemporary music. He travels widely an ...

Desmond de Silva Desmond or Desmond's may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Desmond'' (novel), 1792 novel by Charlotte Turner Smith * ''Desmond's'', 1990s British television sitcom Ireland * Kingdom of Desmond, medieval Irish kingdom * Earl of Desmond, Irish a ...

* Tanya Ekanayaka (composer-pianist) *

Siva Kaneswaran Siva Michael Kaneswaran ( ta, சிவ மைக்கல் கணேசுவரன்) (born 16 November 1988) is an Irish singer best known for being a member of the boy band The Wanted. Early life Kaneswaran grew up in Corduff Blanchar ...

Lay Low Lovísa Elísabet Sigrúnardóttir (born 10 September 1982), better known by her stage name, Lay Low, is an Icelandic musician and singer. Biography Lovísa was born to a Sri Lankan father and an Icelandic mother. She moved to Iceland at a ...

* M.I.A. *

Nimal Mendis Nimal may refer to *Nimal Bandara, Sri Lankan politician *Nimal Gamini Amaratunga, Sri Lankan judge *Nimal Gunaratne Air Vice Marshal Nimal Herat-Gunaratne, VSV, USP, SLAF was the Director Health Services of the Sri Lanka Air Force from 1992 ...

Andrew Nethsingha Andrew Nethsingha, FRCO, ARCM (born 16 May 1968) is an English choral conductor and organist, the son of the late Lucian Nethsingha, also a cathedral organist. He was appointed Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey in Lo ...

(born 1968), choral conductor and organist *

DJ Nihal Nihal Arthanayake (born 1 June 1971) is a Sri Lankan radio and TV presenter who broadcasts on BBC Radio 5 Live. Early life Nihal Arthanayake was born on 1 June 1971, to Theravada Buddhist, Sri Lankan parents. Nihal began his involvement in t ...

Ashan Pillai Ashan Pillai ( born 1 December 1969 in Colombo, Sri Lanka) is a British violist. He was educated as a music and academic scholar at Merchant Taylors School, London and then at the Royal Academy of Music, London, the University of Southern Calif ...

Physicians

* Sir

Sabaratnam Arulkumaran Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran is a Sri Lankan Tamil physician, former president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, and president-elect of the British Medical As ...

* Henry Speldewinde de Boer * Ajith Kumar Siriwardena *

Richard Lionel Spittel Richard Lionel Spittel, (commonly known as ''Dr. R. L. Spittel'') (9 December 1881 – 3 September 1969) was a Ceylonese physician and author. He was one of the foremost experts on the Vedda community. Education and career Richard Lionel Spit ...

Politicians

Nirj Deva ''Thakur Artha'' Niranjan Joseph De Silva Deva Aditya, (born 11 May 1948), known as Nirj Deva, is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as a Member of the European Parliament for South East England from 1999 to 20 ...

* Jan Jananayagam *

Ranil Jayawardena Ranil Malcolm Jayawardena (born 3 September 1986) is a British politician who has been a Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Hampshire since 2015. A member of the Conservative Party, he served under Prime Minister Liz Truss as Secretary of ...

Alexander Robert Johnston Alexander Robert Johnston, FRS (formerly Campbell-Johnston, 14 June 1812 – 21 January 1888) was a British colonial official who served twice as Acting Administrator of Hong Kong from 1841 to 1842. He also served in the Executive and Legislati ...

Religion

* Kamal Chunchie * Bogoda Seelawimala Nayaka Thera *

Lakshman Wickremasinghe Lakshman Wickremasinghe (25 March 1927 – 23 October 1983) was one of the youngest bishops in the Anglican Communion and a human rights activist. Early life and education Born on 25 March 1927, he was the third son of Cyril Wickremesinghe of t ...

Scientists

* Suran Goonatilake *

Cyril Ponnamperuma Dr. Cyril Andrew Ponnamperuma ( Sinhala: ආචාර්ය සිරිල් ඇන්ඩෘ පොන්නම්පෙරුම) (16 October 1923 – 20 December 1994) was a Sri Lankan scientist in the fields of chemical evolution and ...

Chandra Wickramasinghe Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe (born 20 January 1939) is a Sri Lankan-born British mathematician, astronomer and astrobiologist of Sinhalese people, Sinhalese ethnicity. His research interests include the interstellar medium, infrared astronomy, ...

Sports

Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...

* Alistair Blair *

Jude Chaminda Wales Minor Counties Cricket Club was formed in 1988, and first competed in the Minor Counties Championship in their founding season. They have appeared in eighteen List A matches, making nine NatWest Trophy and nine Cheltenham & Gloucester Tr ...

Dimitri Mascarenhas Adrian Dimitri Mascarenhas (born 30 October 1977) is a former English cricketer. A right-handed batsman and right-arm medium-fast bowler, he played internationally for England, as well as domestically for Hampshire. He holds the record for most ...

Gehan Mendis Gehan Dixon Mendis (born 24 April 1955) is an English former cricketer who was an opening batsman for Sussex and Lancashire between 1974 and 1993. He was part of the Lancashire team that won the 1990 Benson & Hedges Cup and 1990 NatWest Trop ...

Walter Philps Walter Robert Norman Philps (8 April 1903 – date of death unknown) was a Ceylonese born English cricketer. Philps batting and bowling styles are unknown. He was educated at Brighton College in England, where he represented the college cr ...

* Murugan Thiruchelvam *

Duncan White Major Deshamanya Duncan M. White MBE, ED (1 March 1918 – 3 July 1998) was a Sri Lankan sportsman. He was the first Ceylonese athlete to win an Olympic medal, winning silver in the 400-metre hurdles at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London, Engl ...

* Glucka Wijesuriya

Writers

Mahinda Deegalle Mahinda Deegalle is a scholar and writer who teaches at Bath Spa University. In 2000, he held the Numata Professorship in Buddhist Studies at McGill University. He writes both in Sinhala and English. Life Deegalle is the author of ''Popularizing Bu ...

* Rohan Jayasekera *

Michael Ondaatje Philip Michael Ondaatje (; born 12 September 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer, essayist, novelist, editor, and filmmaker. He is the recipient of multiple literary awards such as the Governor General's Award, the Giller P ...

* Nadarajah Selvarajah *

Ambalavaner Sivanandan Ambalavaner Sivanandan (20 December 1923 – 3 January 2018), commonly referred to as A. Sivanandan or "Siva", was a Sri Lankan and British novelist, activist and writer, emeritus director of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), a London-based ...

Others

* Kali Arulpragasam *

Peter Kuruvita Peter Kuruvita (born October 1963) is an Australian chef, restaurateur and media personality, known for his rich culturally inspired cooking, highly influenced by his Sri Lankan father and Austrian mother. Early life Born in 1963 in Fulham, to a ...

* Sir

Christopher Ondaatje Sir Philip Christopher Ondaatje, OC, CBE, FRSL (; born 22 February 1933) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian–English businessman, philanthropist, adventurer, writer and bob-sledding Olympian for Canada. Ondaatje is the older brother of the author Mic ...

Ganesh Sittampalam Ganesh Sittampalam (born 11 February 1979) is a British computer specialist and former record holder youngest person to pass an A-Level. Sittampalam was born on 11 February 1979 in Croydon. He is the son of Arjuna Sittampalam, a Tamil, and Ne ...

References

{{Reflist b

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

Sri Lankan

Business and Industry

Academic

Actors

Engineers

Lawyers

Media

Military

Musicians

Physicians

Politicians

Religion

Scientists

Sports

Writers

Others

See also

References