The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford has published a briefing on citizenship and naturalisation among migrants in the UK. Applications for British citizenship reached a record of around 315,000 in the year ending June 2026, more than double the level in the year ending June 2017. The briefing examines the factors behind the increase, differences in naturalisation among migrant groups, and barriers including application costs, language requirements and civic knowledge tests.

The Migration Observatory has published a commentary examining how small retail and hospitality businesses have used the Skilled Worker visa route. It reports that retail and restaurant management roles were eligible for sponsorship from 2021 because the post-Brexit system allowed medium-skilled jobs to qualify. However, the government tightened the rules in 2025 by raising the standard salary threshold to £41,700 and removing sales supervisors, retail managers and restaurant managers from the eligible occupations list. Existing sponsored workers may extend their visas under transitional arrangements, but new visas can no longer normally be issued for these roles. Freedom of Information data show that 8,600 businesses sponsored workers in specified retail categories between January 2021 and March 2025, while 11,000 sponsored chefs or restaurant managers, although the number of these that are small shops and takeaways is unknown. Small businesses may still sponsor eligible higher-skilled roles if the work is genuine and meets the relevant salary threshold. The Home Office revoked 4,400 Skilled Worker sponsor licences in the year ending March 2026, compared with 1,600 in the previous year.

The Migration Observatory has published a briefing identifying ten significant problems in the UK's immigration data and evidence base for 2025. The report highlights gaps including insufficient information on migration's impact on public services and government spending, inadequate population data by nationality and immigration status, and limited data on asylum seekers' journeys through the system. Other identified issues include unclear data on human rights claims in immigration cases, gaps in enforcement and returns statistics, unknown size of the unauthorised population, and insufficient official data linking migration and crime. The Observatory notes that while the UK maintains an "impressive suite of immigration statistics," structural problems with data siloes, disorganised databases and incomplete record-keeping continue to hinder comprehensive analysis. The report offers practical suggestions for improvement, including better linkage between different immigration datasets and more systematic publication of administrative data already collected by government departments.

The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford has published a briefing on UK asylum accommodation, noting a significant decrease in the share of asylum seekers housed in hotels. The proportion fell from 41% at the end of 2023 to 21% by March 2026, reflecting both a reduced overall demand and a shift towards dispersal housing. During the same period, the total number of asylum seekers in accommodation support declined from 112,000 to 98,000.

The Migration Observatory has published a data briefing examining the integration of migrants into the UK labour market, focusing on employment patterns, occupational distribution, earnings, and working conditions. Drawing on ONS and HMRC data, the report highlights that in December 2024, adult migrants—defined as non-UK nationals at the time of National Insurance registration—comprised 19% of the UK employee workforce, with significant sectoral and regional variation. London had the highest proportion of non-UK employees (42%), while Wales had the lowest (10%).

The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford has published a briefing by Ben Brindle and Mariña Fernández-Reino, examining migrants’ integration into the UK labour market. The briefing finds that migrants accounted for 19% of UK employees in December 2025, with growth increasingly driven by non-EU migration following the introduction of the post-Brexit immigration system in 2021, particularly through recruitment into health and social care roles. The authors highlight that migrant men were more likely to be employed than UK-born men, while migrant women were slightly less likely to be employed, especially among women from South Asian, Middle Eastern, North African and Central Asian backgrounds where caring responsibilities were a significant factor. The report also notes that migrants who arrived for work had the strongest employment outcomes, whereas refugees and asylum-related migrants experienced lower employment rates and higher unemployment because of factors including poorer health outcomes, smaller social networks and restrictions on working during the asylum process.

The Migration Observatory has published a new Q&A on common questions over immigration charges and their potential implications following recent increases in a number of such charges. The Q&A addresses what fees migrants pay, how much those fees cost, how migrants are affected by the fees, the rationale behind the introduction of immigration charges, how much they have increased by and how the Home Office sets application fee levels.

The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford has published an analysis of HM Revenue and Customs payroll data examining how migrant workforce participation and earnings have changed since 2014. It finds that the number of non-EU-origin employees more than doubled to 4.2 million by 2025, accounting for all net labour force growth since before the pandemic. More than 1.2 million non-EU migrants entered the employee workforce in 2022 and 2023, while the number of new EU-origin employees declined to around 45,000 in 2025, almost 90% lower than in 2015. These numbers include persons issued with work visas as well as international students who can work, dependants of people arriving on student and work visas (who can work), humanitarian arrivals from Ukraine and Hong Kong, as well and people who moved to the UK in earlier years but had not worked before. For EU-origin migrants the numbers will also include people with leave under the EU Settlement Scheme who have subsequently started working.

The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford has published a briefing analysing migrant distribution across UK regions. The briefing shows that London hosts the highest concentration of migrants at 40% of its population, with non-EU migrants now outnumbering EU migrants in all regions except Northern Ireland. All regions of the UK have experienced rising net international migration since 2021. The analysis reveals family migration as the predominant category across most regions, while documenting post-Brexit shifts in workforce composition and student enrolments. The briefing also notes rising net international migration across all UK regions since 2021, with uneven distribution of asylum seekers and refugees across the UK.

The Migration Observatory has published a briefing on the effect of migration on population growth in the UK. While the UK does not have an explicit population policy, the briefing examines how migration and migration policy over the last 20 years has impacted population growth in the UK up until now as well as projected population numbers for the future.

The Migration Observatory has published a briefing which looks at  attitudes towards immigration in the UK. The report notes that opinions are divided in the UK, in April 2023, 52% thought that immigration numbers should be reduced while 32% stated that immigration was ‘bad or a very bad thing’. Evidence from multiple sources indicated that attitudes had been easing towards immigration, however recent data from 2023 indicates an ‘uptick’ in concern for the first time since prior to the Brexit Referendum. The briefing found that attitudes in the UK are among the more positive in comparison with certain European countries. It also found that British people make clear distinctions between types of migrant, and attach greater importance to migrants’ skills than their country of origin (although many do make distinctions between different countries). The majority of  people in the UK  are in favour of making immigration easier for health care workers. Finally, the briefing indicates that younger individuals and those with university degrees generally have more favourable views on immigration, and Labour supporters are more likely to hold positive attitudes towards immigration in comparison to Conservative supporters.

The Migration Observatory has published a briefing looking into asylum, refugee resettlement and bespoke humanitarian schemes in the UK. Key takeaways from the briefing include that in 2022, people who had come to the UK to seek asylum (including long-term residents for more than 10 years who had initially entered on this basis) comprised 0.6% of the UK population, while asylum seekers constituted 7% of total immigration figures in 2023, that in 2023 the top five most common nationalities of asylum applicants were Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, and that there has been a significant increase in waiting time for an initial asylum decision from 2014 to 2023.