Migration 'likely to be a hot topic for years'

Migration 'likely to be a hot topic for years'

Immigration in the UK has gone through seismic shifts in the last two decades, says Madeleine Sumption, director of the Oxford Migration Observatory, as she explains how Brexit and global trends have reshaped the country's immigration patterns.

"For decades, non-EU migration was the main source of immigration to the UK," she says. "Things started changing around 2004 when the EU expanded. By the 2010s, EU migration had overtaken non-EU migration."

The tide turned again after Brexit, with non-EU immigration surging back to prominence.

As a result, Poland has been replaced by India as the top source country for migrants to the UK, "particularly in sectors like health care and higher education.”

However, Sumption stresses that migration statistics from the early 2000s are not always reliable.

"We don't have perfect data from that time," she acknowledges. "Non-EU migration may have been the majority even back then, but it's clearer in the data from 2010 onwards."

Sumption notes that while Brexit policies have significantly impacted EU migration, the shift from EU to non-EU migration began before the referendum because of "exchange rates, economic changes, and geopolitical factors."

After Britain voted No in a referendum on whether to stay in or quit the European Union, she points out, “several things happened at once.

"Free movement for EU migrants ended, which significantly reduced the flow of EU migrants to the UK," she says. "On the other hand, there was a liberalisation of policies towards non-EU migrants, particularly for international students and care workers."

The introduction of the "graduate route," allowing international students to stay and work in the UK after completing their studies, had contributed to the growth in numbers.

At the same time, UK universities were aggressively recruiting overseas students, especially after Covid-19, to make up for their own financial shortfalls: “We ended our lockdowns sooner than some competitor countries, like Australia, which made the UK more attractive."

There was concern about care sector staff shortages “so the government opened up its care visa - and … Zimbabwe became a major source country.” There was also quite a lot of abuse, she adds, with a considerable number of workers being exploited: “It was not a well-managed process.”

The third group of migrants consisted of Ukrainians (granted 200,000 visas) and HongKongers (particularly in 2021 and 2022), “though the biggest drivers of immigration are still workers and students, rather than those who came on humanitarian routes.” People seeking asylum account for about 10 per cent of migrants.

How long migrants stay "depends heavily on the type of visa they come in on," says Sumption. "Refugees and family members tend to stay permanently, while workers and students often leave after their visas expire. We expect that more health and care workers are staying permanently now, though.”

British emigration also has an impact on the overall migration figures: "Between 30,000 and 80,000 Brits emigrate each year, which lowers the net migration figures. Without that outflow, the numbers would be even higher."

Sumption anticipates a slight decrease in the number of migrants, but probably not to pre-Brexit levels of 250,000 to 350,000 a year.  "We've already seen a decline in work and study visas. However, the numbers are still likely to remain higher than pre-Brexit levels, especially in sectors like health and care."

She also points to the influence of non-immigration policies. "The care sector, for example, struggles to recruit workers because of poor pay and conditions. That's a policy issue in a publicly funded sector, leading to higher demand for migrant workers."

Overall, Sumption believes that while Brexit and global events such as the war in Ukraine have re-shaped UK immigration patterns, migration remains a complex, evolving issue: "Non-EU migration has taken centre stage again, and the UK's immigration landscape is now influenced by a mix of policy changes, economic needs, and global dynamics."

She foresees that migration will continue to be a hot topic for years: "It's an issue that affects every part of society, and we're likely to see further shifts as new policies and global events unfold."

+ Sumption on the national debate on migration: “Media coverage can be quite polarised. Often we see debates in which one side says immigration is bringing down the economy and the other says immigration is keeping the economy alive. The reality is more boring: that migration has costs and benefits, and the impacts are smaller than people think.

“There are countries, like Japan, with much lower levels of migration and they do fine, and countries like Australia that have much higher levels of migration and they do fine, too.

“It's often not the determining factor, at least from an economic perspective.”

• The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford provides independent, authoritative, evidence-based analysis of data on migration and migrants in the UK, to inform media, public and policy debates, and to generate high quality research on international migration and public policy issues.

Photo credit: Madeleine Sumption, Oxford Migration Observatory