A research has claimed British workers outside London are losing more than £1,000 a year in salaries because of migration.
Research based on confidential HMRC data reveals an increase in non-UK nationals in the workforce has suppressed wages — generating a seismic gap between what British workers earn, and what they should have earned, during the past decade.
The report, by Cambridge Circus Research, a new London-based thinktank, also claims migrants have seized four in five of the 2.8million new jobs generated in the past decade.
Migration has surged, it adds, and the gap in median wages widened to £18.2billion last year – or £1,060 every British worker outside the city.
Brits could have missed out on £78 billion in lost earnings over the past ten years — much of it during the post-Covid spurt in migration as immigration regulations were eased.
The poorest are hardest hit. They are losing money because their hourly income is falling rather than because they are working fewer hours.
The analysis does not seek to definitively explain the extent to which the influx of migrants is depressing wages for British workers.
But it does point to a competitive labour market and a huge growth in positions in lower-paid industries such as hospitality, retail, food processing and care could be pushing salaries down.
CCR, which has not disclosed its funders, is calling for the Government to end all visas for low paid labour, set high salary standards for skilled work and publish transparency data on compensation by nationality.
The wages of British workers decline every year
Estimated gap in London-excluded English wage bills since 2015
“Migration has cost British workers more in wages than in jobs,” claimed the report’s author, economics graduate Hubert Kucharski.
The burden has been borne by the lower paid, mostly in the form of reduced hourly pay rather than fewer hours.
Policy should consequently close the doors into low-wage jobs, stop depending on linguistic restrictions to protect salaries, and release the data that made these conclusions feasible.
“We are now at the stage where we have to recognise migration has an impact on what British workers are paid and the question is now whether policy will take that cost into account,” he said.
For this study we used pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) tax data for each of the 147 local authorities in England (including the 32 London boros and The City) provided to us by HMRC under freedom of information legislation.
The data analysed in the report estimates that 2.8million new positions were produced between 2015 and 2025, of which 2.3million, or 80 per cent, went to foreign nationals.
Kucharski said four out of every 10 UK nationals’ were lost, compared to those taken by migrants.
In that time the overall number of jobs held by foreigners went up by two-thirds while the number of jobs held by British workers went up by less than 3 per cent.
In total one in five UK jobs is now considered to be held by a foreigner – bringing down pay.
Pay in areas with higher migrant employment grew less than in other authorities.
London is excluded from the numbers because it is an oddity – twice as many foreign arrivals in the capital compared to the rest of England are from higher income nations such as the US, and push up median salaries.
This would distort the figures, Kucharski argued, because if the capital were taken into account, the median salary fall may be about £390 a year, or maybe less.
Responding to the findings, Reform UK’s Shadow Home Secretary Zia Yusuf said: ‘Tory and Labour mass immigration is costing British citizens £1000 a year.
‘The notion that mass immigration is helpful for our economy has long been a lie.
Both sides have imported tens of millions of immigrants over the years, putting unprecedented strain on our resources and driving down the incomes of ordinary Brits.
‘Only Reform can bring the age of mass migration to a stop, reverse the Boriswave and halt Britain’s addiction to cheap, low-skilled foreign workers.
The research follows a significant shake-up of the UK’s immigration system, which has already seen more than 100 jobs removed off the list of qualifying roles for skilled work visas and overseas recruiting for care workers put on hold.
Now occupations on the Skilled Work Visa list now demand individuals with degree-level experience, a minimum salary of £41,700 and A-Level equivalent competence in English.
You can use lower-skilled people, but only if the job is on a ‘temporary shortage list (TSL)’, of medium-skilled jobs that now includes jobs in engineering, IT, sales and the arts.
People coming in on a TSL visa cannot bring their families with them – and firms have to prove to the Home Office they are training UK workers or risk losing their licence.
There are also plans to increase the period migrants have to wait before they can seek for indefinite leave to remain, a move which has angered unions representing care workers.
Net migration plummeted last year to 171,000, down more than 80 per cent from the 2023 peak of 944,000, official numbers from the Office for National Statistics show.
Earlier this week the Home Secretary said she was under constant pressure to ease the Government’s stern new line on work visas.
“Absolutely when you’ve got a true labour shortage that you can’t fix in any other way, you should attempt to bring workers in from outside, she said the Rest Is Politics program.
But I have to tell you, since I’ve been in the Home Office, the number of requests I receive from colleagues across Government from other departments, ‘Can I get 10 visas over here for welders’ or whatever.
“It’s too easy to just bring in foreign workers, and nobody’s been looking at the skills needs of the people already here.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “Under this government, net migration is down by 82 per cent since it peaked following Brexit, and more than 100 lower-skilled jobs have been closed to overseas recruitment, helping to relieve pressure on housing, the NHS and public services.
‘We are putting British workers first, removing the dependency on cheap imported labour while welcome the high-skilled talent our economy needs.’