Migration is costing British workers outside London more than £1,000 a year in pay, a study has claimed.
Research based on previously unpublished HMRC data suggests a surge in non-UK nationals in the workforce has pushed down wages – creating a seismic gap between what British workers earn, and what they should have earned, over the last decade.
The study, by Cambridge Circus Research – a new London-based think-tank – also suggests migrants have taken four in five of the 2.8million new jobs created in the last ten years.
As migration has risen, it says, the shortfall in median wages grew to £18.2billion last year – equivalent to £1,060 per British worker outside the capital.
Over the last decade, British workers may have missed out on as much as £78billion in lost pay – the majority of it lost following the post-Covid surge in migration as immigration rules were relaxed.
Lower-paid workers are bearing the brunt, with money lost through dwindling hourly pay rather than fewer hours of work.
The report does not attempt to conclusively explain why the surge in migrants is pushing down salaries for British workers.
However, it suggests that a competitive jobs market and a marked increase in roles in lower-paid work such as hospitality, retail, food processing and care could be driving wages down.
CCR – which has not declared the source of its funding – has called on the Government to cut all visas for low-wage work, set high salary thresholds for skilled work and publish transparency data on pay by nationality.
Hubert Kucharski, the economics graduate who authored the report, said: ‘Migration has cost British workers more in pay than in jobs.
‘The cost has fallen on the lower-paid, mainly through lower hourly pay rather than fewer hours.
‘Policy should therefore narrow the routes into low-wage work, stop relying on language rules to protect wages, and publish the data that made these findings possible.’
He added: ‘We are now at the point where we must accept that migration affects what British workers are paid, and the question has become whether policy will take that cost into account.’
The study drew on pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) tax data for each of England’s 147 local authorities, including London’s 32 boroughs and The City, obtained from HMRC under freedom of information laws.
Analysis of the data suggests some 2.8million new jobs were created between 2015 and 2025, of which 2.3million were taken by foreign nationals, or 80 per cent.
For every 10 of those taken by migrants, Kucharski says, four held by UK nationals were lost.
In that time, the total number of jobs held by foreigners rose by two-thirds, while the number of jobs held by British workers rose by less than 3 per cent.
In all, one in five UK jobs is now thought to be held by a foreign national – pushing wages down.
Pay rose less in areas where migrant employment rose more when compared with other authorities.
London is exempted from the figures because it is an anomaly: twice as many foreign arrivals in the capital compared to the rest of England are from higher-income countries such as the US, and push up median wages – unfairly skewing the data.
If the capital were factored in, the median wage drop could be around £390 a year – though Kucharski admits the figure is uncertain.
The study comes amidst a dramatic overhaul of the UK’s immigration system that has already seen more than 100 jobs removed from the list of roles eligible for skilled work visas and overseas recruitment for care workers mothballed.
Occupations on the Skilled Work Visa list now also require workers with degree-level experience, and a minimum salary of £41,700.
Lower-skilled workers can still be hired but only if their role is on a ‘temporary shortage list (TSL)’ of medium-skilled roles that currently includes jobs in engineering, IT, sales and the arts.
Those who arrive on a TSL visa cannot bring family members with them – and employers must show the Home Office they are training British workers or face losing their licence.
Plans are also in the works to increase the time that migrants must wait before they can apply for indefinite leave to remain – infuriating unions representing care workers.
Earlier this week, the Home Secretary revealed she was being constantly lobbied to loosen up the Government’s tough new stance on work visas.
She told The Rest Is Politics podcast: ‘You should absolutely seek to bring workers in from abroad when you have a genuine labour shortage that you can’t fix any other way.
‘But I got to tell you, since I’ve been in the Home Office, the sheer number of requests I get from colleagues across Government from other departments, “Can I have 10 visas over here for welders” or something.
‘No one has been thinking about the skills needs of people who are already here because it’s a bit too easy to just always bring in foreign workers.’
The Home Office was contacted for comment.
It previously said: ‘Under this government, net migration is down by 82 per cent since it peaked following Brexit, and over 100 lower-skilled jobs have been denied access to overseas recruitment.’
