1. Introduction
Environment: a set of measures first introduced in 2012 by then Home Secretary Theresa May which were part of a strategy to make life difficult for migrants that also undermines basic rights at work.
The numbers
Net migration to the UK remained around 200,000 a year through much of the 2010s. By June 2023, it had reached 906,000, and it remained high into the first months of 2024. Although the numbers have fallen since, – net migration fell by almost 50 % by the year end of 2024 to 431,000 according to the Office for National Statistics, they still remain high by historic standards. Since Brexit, the end of free movement has seen more employers turn to visa schemes to fill labour shortages.
As of December 2024:
• Non-UK nationals made up nearly 21 % of all payrolled workers in England, and more than one in three in London, with lower but still significant figures in Scotland( 12 %), Northern Ireland( 11 %) and Wales( 10 %).
• In the NHS, 27 % of nurses were from overseas in 2024( 99,856 out of 372,605).
• In adult social care, 32 % of the workforce were international recruits.
The UK government initially actively encouraged this increase in migration. In 2022, they expanded the Health and Care Worker visa route and set up structures to allow employers in the sector to undertake international recruitment. Visa grants for careworkers rose sharply – from 37,000 in 2022 to over 108,000 in 2023 – with many of those workers also bringing over family and dependents.
Despite the UK’ s ongoing need for workers, in 2024, the government began to rollback its schemes, introducing policies aimed at reducing the numbers coming to the UK. These included barring care-workers from bringing over dependants and raising the minimum salary thresholds for eligible jobs. A year after the changes, the number of Health and Care Worker visas granted dropped by 68 %. The numbers arriving via the broader Skilled Worker visa category also fell. In July 2025, the Labour government ended recruitment from overseas into social care altogether and made further changes to immigration rules, including raising skill and salary thresholds even further. In its white paper it proposed further restrictions including doubling the time it takes to obtain indefinite leave to remain from five years to 10.
Yet, despite the ever-changing immigration environment, thousands of migrant workers remain in the UK and are keeping public services going. Many of them are vulnerable to exploitation because their visa ties them to their job and are forced to exist without the rights, respect or security all workers deserve.
6 LRD • Supporting migrant workers