The impact of net migration on the UK

There’s never a dull moment in the world of UK immigration; and since the beginning of 2024, there’s never been a truer statement.

Even though the UK has experienced broadly similar levels of net migration compared to similar high-income countries, last year saw the number of international students and workers in the Health and Care sector take figures to an all-time-high. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that net migration to the UK was 745,000 in 2022, up from 184,000 before the pandemic.

Remembering that net migration is calculated as long-term immigration minus long-term emigration (i.e. those moving for at least a year in either direction), this could be explained by different reasons – Brexit being a very small piece of a multifaceted puzzle – but it placed the UK government on high alert. For anyone interested diving into more statistical data as part of their bed-time reading, then I would suggest looking at the charts published by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, which clearly show the changes in trends from 2019 to 2023, as well as interesting projections until 2028 (albeit extremely difficult to forecast).

To curb this trend, the UK government has implemented the biggest set of changes since 2020. I’ve tried to detail the most significant ones, some which had better PR campaigns than others:

Government Fees:  

Sponsoring a family of four, for a five-year work visa now costs over £28,000 in government fees only: the Immigration Health Surcharge [IHS] has seen a 66% increase since 6th February, which will take its toll on companies and individuals alike, as in response to fee increases and wider economic pressures some, sponsors have started clawing back fees from migrants directly; a few visa fees have also gone up since 10th April [albeit not many], including the over 3 years Skilled Worker visa, and the citizenship ceremony for naturalising as a British citizen.

Change of qualifying requirements:

Recent times has seen a variety of changes to qualifying requirements, the one with the biggest impact, in the media at least, is the increase of minimum salaries for both the Skilled Worker route (a very popular general work permit) and family visas.

A skilled worker applicant will now need to meet the minimum salary of £38,700 per year (based on 37.5 working hours/week) or the code-specific salary, whichever is higher. Transactional arrangements have been implemented depending on current immigration status [with advisers across the country going through all alphabetic options from A to K].

Family visa routes see the minimum salary up to £29,000, with the intention to match the work routes up to £38,700 p/a.

If this wasn’t sufficient, the government has restructured the occupation codes: the list of eligible occupation codes under the Skilled Worker – and Global Business Mobility – routes [most popular work-related routes] has had a makeover. In order to be eligible, the job will need to “match” an eligible code; each occupational code has a minimum salary, applicable only to positions falling under that specific code – the job offer will need to be within the list of “eligible” positions and will need to meet the code-specific minimum salary. The occupational codes have now moved to a brand-new list (SOC2020) and all code-specific salaries have been increased considerably and are now in the 25% or 50% percentile, depending on job-sector. This likely means that sponsors will need to increase salaries in order to sponsor applicants – and might need to do so for current migrants, once the transitional arrangements have come to an end.

A skilled worker applicant will now need to meet the minimum salary of £38,700 per year (based on 37.5 working hours/week) or the code-specific salary, whichever is higher. Transactional arrangements have been implemented depending on current immigration status [with advisers across the country going through all alphabetic options from A to K].

Family visa routes see the minimum salary up to £29,000, with the intention to match the work routes up to £38,700 p/a.

If this wasn’t sufficient, the government has restructured the occupation codes: the list of eligible occupation codes under the Skilled Worker – and Global Business Mobility – routes [most popular work-related routes] has had a makeover. In order to be eligible, the job will need to “match” an eligible code; each occupational code has a minimum salary, applicable only to positions falling under that specific code – the job offer will need to be within the list of “eligible” positions and will need to meet the code-specific minimum salary. The occupational codes have now moved to a brand-new list (SOC2020) and all code-specific salaries have been increased considerably and are now in the 25% or 50% percentile, depending on job-sector. This likely means that sponsors will need to increase salaries in order to sponsor applicants – and might need to do so for current migrants, once the transitional arrangements have come to an end.

Care workers and students:

Care workers and students alike seem to be a thorn in every government’s side: pursuing them as economically and socially indispensable; but often eyed with suspicion of abusing the system. Legislation came into place at the beginning of the year, stopping students bringing their dependents to the UK; social care workers have also followed suit and have not been able to bring dependents to the UK since the beginning of April.

These are interesting and busy times for all involved in immigration policy. If these changes will have the hoped impact of bringing down net migration is still too early to say. Again, the long-term effect of these new rules is a job for future governments – as it usually is.

With the post-Brexit Settlement Scheme officially closing only in June 3 years ago, the Home Office has had to navigate choppy waters without a break for a while now. I do believe that the latest changes and ultimately what we can consider restlessness in the immigration world during the past 3 years, can well be taken as a reflection of the volatile state of UK – and I’m afraid world-wide – politics. Nevertheless, it’s not all doom and gloom as we move into the post-Brexit era of UK immigration: the UK will always need skilled people but, for once, we need to pay them in line with the current cost of living - almost. While we all wait and see what the future will bring, I will leave to the reader to decide if the UK can maintain (or regain?) the spark of being an attractive place where people will want to move to and build their lives.

This month our article has been kindly authored by Margherita Drago, Senior Immigration Consultant at Sterling Lexicon.

For further information on this topic and more, please contact the Sterling Lexicon immigration team at immigration@sterlinglexicon.com.