2025 Impact at a glance
Last year was a dizzying one for the Work Rights Centre and our clients. On the plus side, the UK government finally passed the Employment Rights Bill, with its significant new protections for workers, and the much-awaited Fair Work Agency. But despite our and our allies’ numerous calls for reforms to safeguard migrant workers, the government’s new immigration policies have been bitterly disappointing, including the biggest restrictions to settlement rights in decades.
This was a testing year for our communities, but that is precisely what motivated us. Our frontline team provided 1,033 clients with employment and immigration legal advice, and employability assistance, and delivered two ambitious capacity-building projects for colleagues in the third sector.
Separately, our policy team made 8 evidence submissions, briefed 37 policymakers, and published 3 major research reports. We also called out the government’s harmful policies in 185 pieces of media coverage, and launched a uniquely accessible Write to your MP tool, to empower our communities to challenge harmful policies.
This is a summary of what we’re up against and what we achieved this year. To support our work, please consider donating today.
Workers on sponsored visas face exploitation across many industries
In 2025, we received 439 new employment rights enquiries, and were able to offer legal advice for 415 of these. Continuing the trend from last year, a sizable share (57%) of employment enquiries came from migrant workers on employer-sponsored routes, including 28% on the Health and Care Worker visa, 13% on the general Skilled Worker visa, and 16% on the Seasonal Worker visa.
It is important to observe that while media coverage and policymakers’ attention generally focused on sponsored workers’ exploitation in the care sector, a sizable 30% of our sponsored clients who reported employment issues were in other industries, like retail, hospitality, IT and construction. Labour exploitation is not a care-specific problem, but a risk inherent in visas that tie migrant workers to their employers, severely limiting their ability to report labour abuses and change jobs. The frontline data proves that point.
Across both sponsored cohorts, the issues faced by workers were similar. They included non-payment of wages, dismissals and, sadly, forced labour - as many as 26 clients were in the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) for Modern Slavery.
The only exception was the non-provision of work by the visa sponsor, an issue that was specific to the care sector, and affected 52 people. In these cases, employers breached their obligation to provide the hours of work specified in the employment contract - and because visa rules prevented these migrants from undertaking full-time work elsewhere or accessing public funds, they were plunged into poverty.
A distinct set of issues was apparent among seasonal workers. A record 67 clients who approached us for employment advice were migrants on the Seasonal Worker Scheme, a six-month-long visa run by scheme operators who place workers on farms and packing houses across the country. Unfortunately, the Seasonal Worker Scheme has a track record of labour abuses, and over the course of 2025 we observed infringements from unpaid wages, to sexual harassment and gross health and safety violations.
Like last year, transferring employers (i.e. switching farms) was the most pertinent issue for clients on the Seasonal Worker Scheme (47 enquiries). Though workers have a right to request a transfer, and many do so when work on a farm dries up or when conditions are inadequate, when scheme operators refuse these requests, the outcomes are serious. Without a timely transfer, seasonal workers end up losing most, if not all, of what they earned in the UK on accommodation and travel back.
The immigration team spent much of 2025 helping exploited workers secure their status
In 2025, as many as 42% of our immigration clients were people on the Skilled Worker route (including care workers), who needed to understand their options after facing exploitation by their visa sponsors. The nature of the enquiries ranged greatly, from understanding eligibility for leave under a Private Life route, to understanding the conditions for switching to a new employer, and even to bringing civil claims for compensation.
Because the immigration rules are strict, destitution was a reality for a lot of our sponsored clients, from chefs to care workers. When the Home Office learns that someone on the Skilled Worker visa loses their job, they officially have just 60 days to find a new visa sponsor, and pay for a new application. That is extremely challenging when workers have no recourse to public funds, and when successive immigration changes have made hiring migrant workers more difficult and expensive.
Consequently, 37 of the immigration enquiries we received were from financially destitute people on the Skilled Worker route, who needed to change the conditions of their leave in order to access public funds. This is a complex application with a high evidential threshold - on average, fewer than 300 applications are successful every month, despite more than a million people nationwide being subject to the NRPF condition.
We also handled many other enquiries in areas where immigration advice is scant. In 2025, we continued to support Ukrainian nationals (13% of immigration enquiries), people on family and Private Life routes (9% of enquiries), and those needing to regularise their status in the UK (18% of enquiries). While we received fewer calls from Ukrainians than in previous years, the continued inflow is reflective of the ongoing need for protection in the UK. Our clients needed assistance with both securing Homes for Ukraine visas to move to the UK, and extending their existing permission to remain.
Our employability service focused on supporting the most vulnerable into work
Our employability service in Manchester assisted 118 clients this past year. Nearly half of these (48%) were migrants on the Health and Care Worker visa, many of whom were desperate to find new employment in the care sector. Many of these workers had been displaced by exploitative employers and despite having good levels of English, they struggled to secure a new sponsored role due to limited resources. As we uncovered in our report, No Match, prospective employers were put off by high Home Office fees for visas, so workers’ CVs had to be particularly compelling.
The employability support we provide is also sensitive to clients’ vulnerabilities, such as IT literacy, knowledge of English, and immigration status. These vulnerabilities create additional barriers to accessing decent employment, which we helped them navigate. Notably, we also supported a number of clients with recent experience of homelessness and single parents of young children.