Accredited official statistics

Why do people come to the UK? Work

Published 27 February 2025

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-december-2024/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-work

Back to ‘Immigration system statistics, year ending December 2024’ content page.

Data relates to 2024 and all comparisons are with 2023 (unless indicated otherwise).

There were 210,098 visas granted to main applicants in all work categories in 2024, 37% fewer than the previous year, but 53% higher than in 2019.

Between 2009 and 2020 there were less than 140,000 work visas issued to main applicants each year. Numbers increased since 2021, peaking at 336,007 in 2023, although have fallen in the latest year. The increase is predominately due to 114,023 more ‘Health and Care Worker’ visas being issued, following the expansion of the route in February 2022 to boost the social care workforce. The growth in this route was accompanied by a large increase in the number of work-related dependant visas granted, with the majority of all work dependants (62%) over the last 3 years being on the ‘Health and Care Worker’ visa.

However, the number of ‘Health and Care Worker’ visas issued to main applicants began to fall in the final quarter of 2023, from a peak of 45,071 in Q3 (July to September) 2023 to 6,564 in Q2 (April to June) 2024; likely due to more scrutiny applied by the Home Office to employers in the health and social care sector, and compliance activity taken against employers of migrant workers. In December 2023, the Home Office also announced a set of policy changes, impacting who can apply for work visas, which came into effect at various points in 2024. The numbers of main applicants granted a ‘Health and Care Worker’ visa have remained relatively stable since April 2024. See ‘Monthly monitoring of entry clearance visa applications’ for further information on these changes.

Other skilled work routes and ‘Temporary Worker’ visas also increased from 2021, but their numbers have levelled off in the last 2 years.

Figure 1: Work visas granted to main applicants between 2014 and 2024

Source: Entry clearance visa applications and outcomes – Vis_D02

Notes:

  1. The ‘Worker’ visa line divides after 2021 (denoted by the dashed lines), when the ‘Health and Care Worker’ visa was introduced alongside other skilled work. Prior to this, the ‘Worker’ category is comprised of visas under the previous ‘Tier 2’ points-based system.

1.1 Health and Care Workers, other skilled work routes, and their family members

There were 27,174 ‘Health and Care Worker’ visas granted to main applicants in 2024, an 81% decrease compared to the previous year.

The number of ‘Health and Care Worker’ visas to main applicants increased from 31,800 in 2021 to 145,823 in 2023. The rise was primarily due to an increase in South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi) and Sub-Saharan African (Zimbabwean, Ghanaian, and Nigerian) nationals coming to work as care workers. However, the number of care workers and home carers issued visas have fallen since the latter part of 2023. The fall towards the end of 2023 is likely due to more scrutiny applied by the Home Office to employers in the health and social care sector, and compliance activity taken against employers of migrant workers, as well as the recent policy measures affecting care workers introduced in Spring 2024. The number of ‘Health and Care Worker’ visas issued to migrant workers in a Caring Personal Service occupation fell by 91% to 9,539 in the latest year.

The number of grants to main applicants on other routes in the ‘Worker’ category (which includes ‘Skilled Worker’ visas) in 2024 has increased by 50% since 2021 but has fallen by 11% since 2023. The occupations which saw the largest decreases were IT, engineering, and finance professionals with visas issued down by 3,869 (-25%), 1,449 (-23%), and 1,106 (-22%) respectively.

Figure 2: Visas granted to dependants of work visa holders by visa route, between 2019 and 2024

Source: Entry clearance visa applications and outcomes – Vis_D02

Notes:

  1. The ‘Skilled Worker’ and ‘Health and Care Worker’ visas were introduced in 2020 and together replaced the ‘Tier 2 – General’ visa.

Figure 2 shows that the introduction of the ‘Health and Care Worker’ and ‘Skilled Worker’ routes contributed to a large overall increase in visas issued to work dependants, from 55,507 in 2019 to 277,620 in 2023 but have since fallen to 159,321 in 2024. ‘Health and Care Worker’ dependants alone accounted for 53% of all work dependants in the latest year.

In 2024, there was an average of 3 dependants per main applicant on the ‘Health and Care Worker’ route. By contrast, those on ‘Skilled Worker’ visas brought an average of one dependant per main applicant. However, the number of ‘Health and Care Worker’ dependants between April and December 2024 was 77% lower than the same 9 months in 2023. This decrease in grants to dependents is likely influenced by falls in grants to main applicants since July to September 2023, and the recent policy change for care worker dependants.

1.2 Temporary workers

There were 78,132 ‘Temporary Worker’ visas granted to main applicants in 2024. This is 5% higher than the previous year but almost double (+91%) the number in 2019, largely due to the growth in the ‘Seasonal Worker’ visa route.

In 2024, 46% of ‘Temporary Worker’ visas granted to main applicants were for seasonal work, 31% were under the ‘Youth Mobility Scheme’ and the remaining 23% were for other temporary work.

Figure 3: ‘Temporary Worker’ visas granted to main applicants between 2019 and 2024

Source: Entry clearance visa applications and outcomes – Vis_D02

Figure 3 shows grants of ‘Seasonal Worker’ visas in 2024 increased by 9% to 35,561 compared with the previous year. The ‘Seasonal Worker’ route was launched in March 2019 with the number of visas that could be granted limited to 2,500 per year. The annual quota has since increased to 47,000 for 2024, which partly explains the overall growth in ‘Temporary Worker’ visas issued over the last few years.

Whilst the number of ‘Seasonal Worker’ visas have grown in the latest year, the nationalities of applicants have also changed. Central Asian nationalities (such as Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) have together grown by 22% to 27,777 and represent over three-quarters (78%) of grants in the latest year. Ukrainian nationals, by contrast, have fallen by 72% to 708 seasonal worker visas following the start of the war in Ukraine and the launch of the Ukraine visa schemes in 2022.

The number of ‘Youth Mobility Scheme’ visas issued increased slightly in 2024, by 8% to 24,437. The growth in Youth Mobility scheme numbers since the year ending September 2021 reflects a bounce-back for the scheme which was heavily impacted by travel restrictions during the pandemic. Recent numbers also include the addition of the India Young Professionals Scheme, which held its first ballot in February 2023. This route has a quota of 3,000 places each year, and in 2024 there were 2,257 grants to Indian nationals under this scheme.

There were 417,157 grants of an extension into work routes for main applicants in 2024, nearly 7 times the amount in 2019, primarily driven by the ‘Graduate’, ‘Health and Care Worker’, and the ‘Skilled Worker’ routes.

The number of ‘Graduate’ route extensions granted to main applicants increased by 49% to 170,371 in the latest year. Increases were also seen in the ‘Health and Care Worker’ (+25%) and ‘Skilled Worker’ (+33%) routes with 119,407 and 103,323 grants of extensions respectively in 2024.

Analysis from the Migrant journey: 2023 report shows that of those arriving on work routes in 2018, 38% still held valid or indefinite leave 5 years later. This suggests most workers do not remain in the UK indefinitely, although this percentage has increased, from 23% for workers arriving in 2012.

The proportion who remain and are granted indefinite leave varies by route, and is considerably higher in the ‘Investor, business development and talent’ visa category where 77% of main applicants held valid leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain after 5 years. Temporary workers by the nature of their visa are less likely to stay long term, needing to obtain a new type of visa to do so, and only 14% who arrived on a ‘Temporary Worker’ visa still held leave 5 years later.

The Home Office publishes the number of ‘Skilled Worker’ and ‘Health and Care Worker’ visa applications by month in the Monthly monitoring of entry clearance visa applications publication.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publish long-term international migration estimates. These are statistics under development that estimate the number of people immigrating to and emigrating from the UK for 12 months or more.

3.1 Sponsorship licensing for work and study

At the end of 2024, there were 112,510 organisations and institutions registered as licensed sponsors for work and study.

Home Office management information indicates that there were 8,700 decisions on applications for sponsor licences between October to December 2024, 56% less than in October to December 2023 (13,606). Of these, 4,983 licenses were granted, and 3,717 applications were not granted (including both applications withdrawn and those rejected).

This data also shows that there were 42,991 decisions made in 2024, compared to 42,885 in 2023. Of these decisions, 29,193 licences were granted (14% fewer than the year before), and 13,798 were not granted (including both applications withdrawn and those rejected).

4. About these statistics

The statistics in this section provide an indication of the number of people who have an intention to enter the UK for work reasons. Further information and definitions can be found in the user guide.

Entry clearance visas allow an individual to enter and stay in the UK within the period for which the visa is valid. Data in this section refers to the number of Entry clearance visas granted for work reasons within the period. If an individual was granted a visa more than once in a given period, this has been counted as multiple grants in the statistics.

Year-on-year comparisons of the number of decisions can be affected by quarterly fluctuations in the data. These fluctuations can be examined in the quarterly data in the published tables. Year ending comparisons will also include impacts resulting from the travel restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Extensions of temporary stay in the UK relate to individuals inside the UK extending or changing the status of their right to stay in the UK. An individual is required to apply for an extension or change in status before their existing permission to enter or stay in the UK expires.

The statistics in this chapter show the number of grants and refusals on applications for extension of temporary stay in the UK. One individual may have made multiple applications for an extension, so may account for multiple decisions. Data in this section includes dependants and takes account of the outcomes of reconsiderations and appeals.

Before 2023, extensions under the ‘Skilled Worker’ and ‘Skilled Worker Health and Care Worker’ visas were not separated into specific subcategories; instead, they were reported as a single, combined figure. Since 2023, however, these extensions have been classified under distinct categories: either ‘Skilled Worker’ or ‘Skilled Worker Health and Care Worker’.

Publication of the ‘Sponsored work visas by occupation and industry’ dataset was temporarily paused due to the Home Office adopting the latest Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) framework; a common classification of jobs in the UK overseen by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). We have resumed publication of this dataset, with the latest available data currently up to the end of December 2024. The new dataset uses the SOC 2020 framework and in order to provide a comparable time series, 2021 to Q3 (July to September) 2024 is primarily based on modelled estimates by converting occupations under the 2010 framework to occupations under the 2020 framework.

5. Data tables

Data on immigration for work can be found in the following tables:

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