LONDON — Polish is the second most common language spoken in England, ­according to statistics published Wednesday, a dramatic illustration of the wave of immigration that has brought nearly 1 million Eastern Europeans to the UK over the past decade.

Britain’s Office of National Statistics said in its most recent report that Polish was considered the ‘‘main language’’ by nearly 550,000 people in England and Wales, or roughly 1 percent of the population. Because statisticians only began asking about foreign language use in the most recent census, there are no past figures available for use as reference.