Migration analysis
Work and routes
Illegal working, sponsors and the legal routes
Overview
Arrivals
The crossing
Decisions
Accommodation
Work and routes
Europe
Detail
Public attitudes →
Illegal working
Sponsors
Legal routes
01
Illegal working
i
Enforcement visits and arrests
half-year, 2019 to 2026
i
Home Office illegal working enforcement data
· delivery and warehousing shown separately
By sector
H1 2025 vs H1 2026, visits
i
By region
H1 2025 vs H1 2026, visits
i
Arrests per visit, by sector
2019 to 2025
i
Can exceed 1: several workers may be arrested at one business. Not a probability.
Civil penalties
i
Delivery sector operation
20–26 July 2025
i
Cash and grey economy operations
i
Gig platform controls
i
Permission to work while claiming
i
Modern slavery referrals by nationality
2024 vs 2025
i
Potential victims. Much of the exploitation reported occurred outside the UK.
Referrals and notifications
2025
i
Where the exploitation happened
2025 referrals
i
HMRC tax gap
2024-25
i
The hidden economy covers undeclared activity by everyone. It is not a measure of illegal migrant working.
02
Sponsors
i
Care visa grants
main applicants, all three routes
i
Home Office entry clearance
· mixed period conventions, labelled per bar
The same collapse, second source
Skills for Care, financial years
i
Recruits into direct care roles, not visa grants. Skills for Care notes that "other routes" can include student, dependant and family routes.
Sponsor licences revoked
rolling 12 months to June
i
A revocation is not automatically evidence of immigration abuse — see the reasons below.
Care workers displaced by the crackdown
i
Why licences were revoked
Jan 2024 – Jun 2025
i
Compliance visits
H1 2025
i
Sponsor system
i
Seasonal worker visas
2024, by country of residence
i
What they paid before arriving
2024 survey
i
How they funded it
i
What the money went on
i
03
Legal routes
i
Work visas by industry
i
Occ_D01 SOC2020
· 61,977 rows
Work sponsorship (CoS)
i
Study sponsorship (CAS)
i
Resettlement schemes
i
Res_D02
Family reunion visas
i
EU Settlement Scheme outcomes
i
8.8m applications concluded
EEA decisions, pre-Brexit regime
i
Settlement grants vs refusals
i
Citizenship applications vs grants
i
Dublin transfers, pre-Brexit
i
Pre-Brexit; UK left the mechanism Jan 2021
ETA outcomes
i
Returns by destination country
i
Ret_D02
· by destination country