Research from the Work Rights Centre shows that further restricting overseas recruitment will have severe consequences for the healthcare sector.
After a series of restrictions to migrant workers’ rights and successive increases to employer costs, the number of skilled worker visas issued to foreign nationals coming to the UK to work is now at its lowest level since 2021.
Research by Dora-Olivia Vicol and Andrei Savitski at the Work Rights Centre, a charity that helps migrants and disadvantaged Britons, has found that significantly fewer migrant care workers, nurses, therapists, scientists, education professionals and skilled tradespeople are coming to work in the UK, compared to a couple of years ago.
The number of visas granted for Caring Personal Service roles, which fall under the Health and Care Worker visa route, saw the steepest decline in absolute terms, from 107,847 in 2023 to as little as 3,178 last year and just 23 in the fourth quarter.
This is despite Skills for Care data showing that as of January, as many as 78,330 roles remain vacant across the adult social care sector in England, with a vacancy rate of 6.3%, at nearly three times the national average. For care worker roles, this is as high as 7.6%.
Last year saw a massive 74% decrease in the number of visas granted to health professionals, which dropped from a peak of 38,997 in 2022 to 10,060 in 2025. This includes a 93% decline in visas granted to nursing professionals, a 30% decline in visas granted to medical practitioners, and a 73% decline in visas granted to therapy professionals.
Severe consequences
The government’s rationale has been that further restricting overseas recruitment will force employers to recruit and invest in the domestic workforce. In practice, however, things are significantly more complex.
As the report makes clear, businesses already have incentives to invest in domestic skills training, but can only do so once they have a stable workforce. The absence of skill is why they’re going to the international market in the first place.
Investment in the local workforce is not just a question of will, it’s also a question of funds. Vicol and Savitski cite the Homecare Association, which noted that “27% of homecare contracts in England are at rates below direct employment costs at the legal minimum wage”. Perhaps most evidently, even if all employers increase investment in training, some roles take years to train for, they point out.
“If the latest data shows the government’s measures to reduce migration are working, the bigger picture is that this can come with severe consequences for the delivery of public services, research institutes, business objectives, and workers’ rights. It is time to change focus,” the research concludes.
