Migrant workers and the National Minimum Wage: Our submission to the Low Pay Commission consultation (2025)

We’ve submitted evidence to the Low Pay Commission (LPC) demonstrating how, despite increases to National Living Wage (NLW) rates in recent years, migrant workers arriving in the UK continue to be excluded from the benefit of minimum wage rates. The reasons for this are diverse and include an inability of migrant workers to enforce employment rights generally, the varying experiences of migrant workers under the UK’s immigration system and regulatory gaps. 

Download the full submission, or read on for a summary of our arguments. And if you can, please donate. Your support is what keeps our advice free and accessible to the workers who need it most.

What is the Low Pay Commission, and what is the consultation about?

The LPC is the independent body which advises the government on the levels of the National Minimum Wage, including the NLW. Each year, the LPC seeks input from a broad range of stakeholders to inform its recommendations to the government about minimum wage rates set in the following year.

The LPC was not given a specific remit for the 2025 consultation, but rather than delay the consultation further, the LPC published its call for evidence to allow stakeholders a substantial length of time to contribute to its work and intelligence gathering.

Our consultation response has focused specifically on the impact of NLW rates on migrant workers. Migrant workers are often a hard to reach and underrepresented group in the labour market. As a migrant-run organisation, the Work Rights Centre is well placed to contribute evidence in this area. Migrant workers have made up the majority of the over 6,000 clients we have advised to date, including on issues that often intersect between employment and immigration law.

How are migrant workers affected by National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates?

Though NLW rates are meant to benefit all workers, the extent to which migrant workers can practically access these rates is varied. In recent times, migrant workers arriving under the UK’s system of sponsorship or ‘tied’ visas (where both employment and immigration status is conditional upon the employer) have been severely limited in their ability to assert their rights. 

Our report, Safeguarding Sponsored Workers, released earlier this year, explored in length the problems with this system and how workers’ rights should ideally be protected through immigration reform. Sponsored workers find it harder to enjoy the benefits of higher minimum wage, because they face significant barriers to accessing their employment rights overall.

Systemic difficulties with securing continuous lawful employment for the duration of their visa, coupled with high costs of recruitment to the UK and exclusion from public funds generate pressure on migrants to survive by taking on cash-in-hand jobs, where underpayment is endemic and exploitation is rife. Sector-specific dynamics also apply, for instance, the use of piece rates under the Seasonal Worker visa.

The cost of living crisis has undoubtedly compounded the situation for all migrant workers, not just those under the sponsorship system. In the last 12 months, 91% of our clients reported only having 0-2 months of savings available to them, with the top nationalities, excluding British nationals, being Ukraine, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Ghana. The latter three nationalities have replaced Poland, Bulgaria and Romania on the same list from 2024, most likely attributable to the increase in enquiries from individuals affected by exploitation on the Health and Care Worker visa route.

Similarly, wages have been suppressed. When comparing our client figures over the last year with the annual living wage (£24,570) as noted by the Living Wage Foundation, we found that migrant men were on average earning significantly below the annual living wage (£21,936), while migrant women fared even worse (£19,752). This suggests that the gendered aspects of work are just as alive among communities of migrant workers, aligning with the Commission’s previous findings on the broader impact of gender in the workplace.

Compliance and enforcement have historically been an issue, though there is hope on the horizon with the government’s plans to merge the main labour market enforcement bodies in the UK into the Fair Work Agency. As we note in our submission, this is a huge opportunity to increase the enforcement of employment rights across the UK, but only if key priorities are addressed as part of this reform package. This includes building trust with vulnerable and under-unionised workers, fulfilling a social partnership model of enforcement where frontline organisations play a more active role in intelligence and triage, and perhaps most importantly, directing adequate funding to this new agency.

What needs to change for migrant workers to have practical access to living wage rates?

It is not possible for migrant workers to have improved access to NLW rates without considering their circumstances in the round. As a result, reform across the areas of immigration, employment and labour market enforcement will be necessary to ensure workers have the full benefit of NLW rates. As examples, this would include:

• On immigration, introducing a set of reforms that would give migrant workers greater flexibility and job mobility under the sponsorship system. This includes giving all migrant visa workers more time to change employment in the UK, and providing for a new immigration status for those at risk of losing their immigration status as a result of exploitation/through no fault of their own.

• On employment, we’ve called on the government to remove the qualifying period for unfair dismissal in respect of migrant seasonal workers arriving in the UK under the Seasonal Worker visa, to allow groups of workers or their representatives to join the Advisory Board of the new Fair Work Agency and the Adult Social Care Negotiating Body, and to go further to stop rogue company officers from obfuscating access to company assets by phoenixing in successful employment tribunal cases.

• On enforcement, ensuring the new Fair Work Agency can properly carry out its labour market enforcement functions, for example by being properly funded, carrying out its work in a regionally nuanced way, and having operational independence from the Home Office to stop unnecessary immigration control “mission-creep”.

These changes, along with a broader acknowledgement that migrant workers’ experience in the labour market differs substantially to that of British workers, would go some way to equalising the entitlement and access to NLW rates in practice.