Migrants Organise, alongside other migrant support organisations, has published a report examining the deterioration of immigration legal aid services. The report titled ‘Threadbare: The Quality of Immigration Legal Aid’ discusses how 57% of UK asylum seekers lacked legal aid access in 2024, while legal aid eligibility has declined from 80% of the population in 1949 to 25% in 2016. The report documents systemic issues in legal aid provision, noting that despite recent funding increases, current spending remains below 2010 levels. The report highlights that (1) legal aid is a vital public service and (2) finding reliable, trusted and publicly-funded advice has become impossible for many. The report makes several recommendations to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) and Legal Aid Agency, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), the Home Office and immigration legal aid providers.

Migrants Organise has published a policy paper drawing on its frontline casework to document the impact of the asylum legal aid crisis on access to justice in the UK. It reports that reductions in legal aid funding since 2012, alongside prolonged fee stagnation and recent increases in asylum decision-making, have significantly reduced both the availability and quality of legal representation. As a result, many asylum seekers are unable to secure lawyers, including at appeal stage, despite the system being designed on the assumption of representation. The report explains that the asylum process is legally complex and procedurally demanding, requiring claimants to gather evidence, meet strict deadlines and navigate adversarial proceedings, tasks that unrepresented individuals, often destitute, traumatised and with limited English, are generally unable to perform effectively.

The new report 'Hostile Office: the Home Office is racist by design' explores the historic racism in UK immigration policy and some of the current ways in which the UK immigration system disproportionately adversely targets people based on race, giving examples from deprivation of citizenship statistics and problems faced with people on health and social care and seasonal worker visas when compared with the conditions of the innovator founder visa.

The Migration Advisory Committee has published research examining the international evidence on the impact of migration on housing costs in the UK. The paper reviews various international studies on immigration, house prices and rents. Its findings indicate that most credible estimates suggest a modest positive effect. Specifically, a one-percentage-point increase in the immigrant share of the population is associated with house price increases in the range of 0–3%, with impacts on rents generally being smaller.

The Migration Observatory has published an essay by Madeleine Sumption assessing UK immigration a decade after the EU referendum, which looks in detail at the policy context behind why the post-Brexit immigration system did not reduce migration as anticipated. The essay attributes this outcome to the simultaneous end of EU free movement and the introduction of liberal options for non-EU work, study and humanitarian routes, which experienced higher-than-expected uptake.

The Migration Observatory has published an analysis assessing Labour’s progress on its migration pledges after more than a year in government. The assessment is based on six commitments: reducing net migration, lowering reliance on overseas workers, cutting small boat arrivals, clearing the asylum backlog, ending the use of asylum hotels, and accelerating the removal of people without legal status in the UK. The report notes that net migration fell to an estimated 204,000 in the year ending June 2025, 78% lower than the 2023 peak of 944,000. Around 52,000 Skilled Worker visas were granted in the year to 30 September 2025, a 55% decline compared with the previous year. These reductions are largely attributed to visa restrictions introduced by the previous government and maintained or expanded by Labour.

The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford has published a briefing on UK net migration based on ONS data, covering trends since the early 2000s and changes under the post-Brexit immigration system. In 2025, net migration was 171,000—well below levels observed during the 2010s and sharply down from the historic peak of 944,000 in the year ending March 2023. Non-EU immigration fell to 627,000 in 2025, approximately 20% lower than in 2024. Of these non-EU arrivals, 67% came for work or study purposes. Nearly 70% entered the UK to study at universities (44%), work (11%), or join work migrants as partners or children (12%), while asylum seekers accounted for 14%. Indian nationals comprised the largest group, representing 17% of total immigration, followed by Pakistani and Chinese citizens at 7% each. As of June 2024, 19% of the UK’s population was foreign-born—a figure similar to Spain and Germany, lower than in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, but higher than in France, the United States, and most Eastern European countries.

The Migration Observatory has published an updated analysis of government proposals announced in November 2025 to double the standard waiting period for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) from five to ten years. The changes would introduce mandatory employment requirements and raise language standards for settlement applicants from level B1(intermediate, similar to a GCSE pass) to level B2 (upper-intermediate, similar to an A-level). Under the proposals, care workers and middle-skilled job holders would face a 15-year wait, while refugees would have to wait 20 years. The Home Office projects that 1.6 million people will receive ILR between 2026–30 under current rules, with 2.2 million people currently on settlement pathways potentially affected. A public consultation on these proposals remains open until 12 February 2026.

The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford has published the third edition of its analysis using HMRC data to assess how the size and earnings of the UK migrant employee workforce have evolved since 2014. The key findings are below.

The Migration Observatory has published research examining how the UK’s immigration system, while formally gender-neutral, affects men and women differently due to the varied visa routes they pursue and the occupations they enter. Women dominate in categories such as partner, Health and Care visas and humanitarian visas, while men are more prevalent among Skilled Worker (non-care), seasonal worker and asylum routes. The gender pay gap among Skilled Worker visa holders is narrower than in the broader UK workforce, largely because female visa holders tend to earn more than female UK citizens. The report finds that under the post-Brexit immigration system, men became more likely to receive student visas, making up a slight majority (53%) in 2024 for the first time in at least eight years. However, recent policy changes—such as the ban on student and care worker dependants and increased income thresholds for partner visas—have had disproportionate impacts on women.

The Migration Observatory has published a commentary on the Youth Mobility Scheme (YMS), a temporary visa programme designed to enable young people from specific countries to reside, work, or study in the UK for a period of up to two or three years. The scheme, which is reciprocal in nature, also permits British citizens to access similar temporary visas in the participating countries. It is primarily aimed at fostering cultural exchange rather than simply supplying the labour market, although it allows visa holders to work in any occupation without being tied to a specific industry.

The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford has published an analysis examining the significant role that net migration has played in shaping the UK’s demographic landscape since 2005 and its projected future impact. The analysis notes that migration has contributed directly to over two-thirds of recent population growth. It details that between 2005–24, net migration was responsible for 68% of the increase, and that since 2020 it has been the predominant driver of population growth as natural change has diminished and entered negative territory. The projections highlight that without net migration, Scotland and Wales would face population declines, with the overall UK population possibly reducing to 66 million by 2050. In the principal projection, which assumes an average net migration of 230,000 per year from mid-2027, the population is set to increase from 69 million to 72 million by 2049.