Migration added 171,000 people to the UK's population last year, almost half the number recorded in 2024 and the lowest level since 2012 apart from the pandemic years. The Office for National Statistics said the net migration rate continued to fall to levels last seen in early 2021.
The drop matters because it points to a sharp reversal after years of unusually high inflows. Sarah Crofts said the recent decrease was driven by fewer people arriving from outside the EU, particularly for work. That change came after a string of policy moves that began under the previous Conservative government and were then kept in place, and in some cases tightened, by Labour.
Among the measures already in force, most overseas students are now restricted from bringing family members to the UK, care workers are restricted from bringing dependents with them, the general salary threshold for skilled visas has risen from £26,200 to £38,700, and the minimum income needed to sponsor someone for a family visa has gone up by more than £10,000. The current government has also announced plans to require migrants to speak English to A-level standard and to raise the skilled worker salary threshold again, to £41,700.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said there is still “more to do,” while ministers have framed the policy shift as part of a push toward “restoring order and control” at the border. The Home Office has said it is “ending Britain's reliance on overseas labour,” while ensuring migrants “contribute more than they take” and increasing the removal of illegal migrants and foreign criminals. Starmer has also said the government is “delivering” a skills-based migration system that rewards contribution and ends reliance on cheap overseas workers.
The figures do not remove the pressure on the asylum system. The UK had 93,525 asylum claims in the year to March 2026, down 12% on the year before but still more than double the level seen just before the pandemic. As of March 2026, 93,653 people were in asylum accommodation, including 20,885 in hotels, or about 22% of the total.
That mix — lower net migration but a still-heavy asylum caseload — leaves immigration politics in a difficult place. After Brexit, arrivals rose sharply, and ministers at the time loosened some salary thresholds and routes for health and social care workers to help fill staffing gaps. Critics of the earlier post-Brexit surge called it the “Boriswave.” Labour has not unwound that system, only trimmed around its edges, which means the latest fall may be less a clean break than the first sign that the post-Brexit migration spike is starting to settle.
