Our clients
The equalities data shared by our clients in 2025 reflects our renewed focus on supporting migrant workers on high-risk employer-sponsored routes, and our long-standing work with the Ukrainian community after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Nigeria was the largest nationality amongst our clients this year, representing 14% of all enquiries, followed by Ukraine, who represented approximately 10%. Other nationalities mirror the composition of migrants on the Skilled Worker route (including Ghana, India, Pakistan and Zimbabwe), but also those on the Seasonal Worker Scheme, most of whom come from Central Asian countries (including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan).
The diversity of clients is also reflected in ethnicity data. More than three-quarters of the people (78%) who approached us in 2025 identified as other than “White”. A total of 33% identified as “Black” and 36% as “Asian”, reflecting the international recruitment of workers from Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and South Asian countries. Those identifying as “White Other” accounted for 21% of clients, owing to ongoing demand for our services from Ukrainian and Eastern European nationals.
The majority of our clients identified as female (56%), reflecting the feminisation of sectors like care and hospitality, where many of our clients were working, as well as the restrictions imposed on adult Ukrainian men from leaving the country following the Russian invasion.
Finally, it is telling that 69% of our adult clients had at least an undergraduate degree, which speaks to the issue of migrants’ overqualification. Despite holding strong qualifications and years of experience, many migrant workers take up lower-paid, precarious jobs due to language barriers and difficulties in having their skills recognised.
Work and financial precarity
When we talk about precarious work, we are referring to work arrangements characterised by a high level of uncertainty, low wages, and minimal protections.
A significant proportion of our clients did not have a regular work schedule. This translated into uncertain incomes, which in turn had serious consequences on people’s mental health and relationships, as outlined in our report on care workers, The Forgotten Third.
Clients were also generally working in lower-income roles, with average monthly wages (full-time) of £1.9k for men, and £1.6k for women. For sectors such as agriculture, care and hospitality these figures were sometimes substantially lower. Beyond the absolute numbers, which say little about actual disposable incomes, the vast majority of our clients (96%) held no more than two months’ worth of savings.
Financial precarity can make it harder to challenge poor working conditions. This is particularly the case given that only 15% of our clients were unionised (by contrast, the average rate of unionisation in the UK is 22%). For workers on the Skilled Worker route, the figure was similarly low at 19%, despite many working in care, a sector with a heavier union presence.
One of the most at risk groups were clients struggling with informal work arrangements. This year 7% of people who approached us for employment advice were trapped in black market work. This means that they did not have official records to support their claims. Nearly 1 in 4 (23%) clients did not have a written contract, and 20% did not have any confirmation of payment.
Employers who fail to provide written terms are not only breaking the law, but are also reducing the contract to a less clear, verbal one, making it harder for workers to challenge exploitation. While a majority (66%) of clients without a written employment contract were workers or employees, a further 27% had unclear employment status - a reminder of how unscrupulous employers misconstrue ‘self-employment’ to limit their tax bills, with serious implications for workers.