One interesting quirk that has occurred due to the clampdown on immigration is that dependants now significantly outnumber main applicants amongst work visa applicants. This is because workers often move here on their own first and then bring over family later. Dependant numbers will fall further.

If you ever needed proof that AI sycophancy is real, this is possibly the best example I've ever seen.

Demographic change comes at you fast www.economist.com/britain/2026...

Updated number of people crossing the Channel by small boat until the end of May. Numbers have increased with the warmer weather but the fall is real and not just seasonal. Only a small fall on 2022 and 2024, but worth remembering that these years had a lot of crossings at the end of the year.

As of the end of May- now just over half of all work visas sponsored for care workers in 2023 were sponsored by an employer who no longer has an active sponsor license.

If net migration becomes negative in 2026 it will be because of a collapse in international student numbers right at the same time that the graduate visas of the largest student cohort expire.

As of the end of 2025 there were 328,466 people who initially arrived on a student visa now on a long-term work visa (234,863 main applicants and 93,603 dependants). This doesn't include the graduate visa. Mostly Indians and Nigerians. Main applicants still switched but very few dependants in 2025.

Corrected version of the net migration projection.

Updated net migration projection based on latest data. Net migration may go negative without 'earned settlement', though this isn't guaranteed. With 'earned settlement', in the strict form proposed by Shabana Mahmood, negative net migration looks near certain.

First official data evidence to back up what international students have been telling us. It’s now much harder to get a work visa as an international student than it was a couple of years ago.

The net migration figures for Year Ending June 2025 have been revised up from 204,000 to 219,000. The previous figures were significantly overestimating emigration of people on family visas.

One interesting snippet from the data this morning. The new English language test has reduced the number of work visa applications by engineers by 29%. Other jobs affected include medium skilled jobs like welders, mechanics, electricians and construction workers.

The net migration figures for year ending December 2025 come out on Thursday. With net migration due to crash in 2026, you might expect to see a big fall. But we won’t see this just yet. I’m expecting a relatively small fall to about 180,000. (1/x)

Only 2,300 main applicant work visa applications in April (1,900 skilled worker and 400 health and care), joint lowest with February this year (which is of course a shorter month). 8,900 student visa applications. 40% fall compared to April 2025.

One interesting thing that has largely been forgotten is that David Cameron cut non-EU net migration by 70% in just one year. However, this didn’t reduce net migration as EU immigration increased massively to fill the gap. Until 2012, non-EU net migration always outnumbered EU immigration.

@jamesbowes01.bsky.social just another example of the absurdities of the skill levels - we got an approval letter today for someone earning 125k on a level 3-5 code. He’s got a wife and kids who couldnt come under him, becayse he apparently wont contribute enough lol. lmao, in fact.

April 2026 is the second lowest post pandemic month* for people crossing the Mediterranean into the EU (mostly asylum seekers). Mainly small boat crossings but also by land from Turkey. *March 2022 was lower. However, that was unusual for the time, now we’ve had 4 straight very low months.

How does your local area compare with others on migration? With local elections this week, we've just published a new edition of our local data guide. Explore how each local authority profiles on immigration, foreign students, asylum seekers and more. migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/projects/loc...

www.thetimes.com/uk/transport... This is very interesting. Includes the point I’ve previously made about the dramatic fall in Eritreans crossing from Libya to Italy.

Immigration is falling sharply, so why haven't politicians noticed? Me in The New World thenewworld.substack.com/p/immigratio...

As of the end of April, the number of people crossing by small boat is down 42% on last year. Comparable to earlier years, but 2024 and especially 2022 had a big wave of crossings towards the end of the year. If this doesn’t happen this year then looks like about 30,000 people crossing in 2026.

Updated as of the end of April. Worryingly high. Sponsor license revocations in April lower than March, but they were much higher in the second half of the month than the first half (possibly the new payroll rules kicked in then?)

The Office for National Statistics has revised its net migration projections down from 340,000 to 230,000 a year — but the true number could be even lower | James Bowes buff.ly/DAr5IzZ

230k is still an unrealistically high estimate for net migration* but it’s better than 340k. *Unless immigration law is liberalised, we enter a period of rapid economic growth that increases demand for high skilled workers or there is a major refugee crisis.

"Once immigration is fixed" is a very revealing phrase. It shows what a lot of Labour MPs (and the government) think of us. We are a problem to be solved, not members of the community like everyone else. And our lives must be made harder to satisfy some mythical Red Wall voters.

www.ons.gov.uk/releases/uke... This will be very interesting. One to look out for on the 21st May.

How much do migrants on Skilled Worker visas get paid? New FOI data show big differences by skill level and whether the job was in healthcare or other industries. For context, median earnings for full-time employees were £39,000 over the same period.

Telegraph continues the pattern of stories about immigration + asylum including graphical information [there are fewer crossings this year] that is not/rarely referred to in the news reports, but is at least available to the reader who can squint

Looking at this, Pakistan is very close to meeting the threshold for the visa brake. It’ll probably be triggered this year with the collapse in number of new students coming from Pakistan, whilst the students that came last year reach the end of their course.

Actually this is even worse than I thought. If a university loses their sponsor license then all of their existing international students have to find a new course or leave the country. This will be catastrophic. An amber rating meant they can keep their students but with limits on new recruitment.

This is very significant. The January student intake is already down 1/3 on 2025 and that is before the new compliance rules take effect this June. It’ll only fall even further once universities start facing restrictions on international student recruitment.

The number of people crossing by small boat this year compared to last year. The fall is very real and not seasonal. Little difference in numbers during the winter but since numbers increased in spring, half as many people are coming as this time last year. This is mainly because of European trends.

9,000 main applicant work visa applications October-December 2025 but only 7,500 January-March 2026. 1/6 drop likely explained by tougher English rules and possibly the increased number of sponsors losing their license. We won‘t know til May but likely the fall is biggest for non-graduate jobs.

The complex proposals are often misunderstood: media reports invariably use an (inaccurate) shorthand of mostly 10 years rather than 5. But 15 years will be more common for 2021-24 arrivals. Few know its 15 years for chefs, lab technicians, electricians & hotel managers, as well as care workers

Every year small boat crossings increase with the better weather in the spring and this year is no different. So does that mean the recent low numbers are just seasonal? No- the number of people crossing in March 2026 is less than half the number in March 2025. There has been a real fall. (1/2)

Last year there were stories about 1,948 being the record number of sponsor license revocations in a year (July 24-June 25). Well 2,325 were revoked just from January to March of 2026. The sponsor rules get even tougher in April.

Surreal moment last night. I got IDed and didn’t have any ID on me. So had to search my sent emails for a 5 year old email where I sent a picture of my passport to my mortgage provider. Took about 5 minutes. After all that I showed him a picture of my passport showing my age. I’m 40.

Even Express, following up the Mail on Sunday "threaten to resign" rumour says the *most controversial* part of policy is to make people already here wait "five years longer" It will be +10 years for more Those advocating this rarely mention 15 years (or 20) Those reporting it may not even know

Even without the Earned Settlement policy, net migration is likely to be negative for at least part of the next few years. Graduate visas are expiring, but far fewer new students are coming to replace them, and work visa grants for entry are back down to 2018 levels.

Student visa applications have fallen a lot with the tougher compliance regime and shorter duration of the graduation visa, more than expected. The fall is actually even steeper than that as the student visa rejection rate has recently increased a lot, especially for Pakistanis.

11% of work visas sponsored in 2022 were sponsored by an employer who has had their sponsor license revoked, but by 2023 this had risen to 26%. Partly because more work visas were sponsored below graduate level in 2023, but even once you adjust for skill level more visas were revoked.

Only 2,300 main applicant visa applications for skilled worker/health and care visas in February. I'd expect about 10-15% of them to get rejected, so even fewer will be granted. The B2 English language test seems to be having a larger than expected effect, but also sponsors are losing their license.

Even without the Earned Settlement policy, net migration could plausibly be negative this year. A huge collapse in international student numbers has coincided with a very large cohort coming to the end of their time on the graduate visa. www.ft.com/content/aa84...

Corrected my projection for 2027 and very tentatively projected to the end of the decade and to a long-term steady state. I've included figures but those for 2027 are very tentative and those later are very rough. The shape of the graph is worth noting though as it isn't a smooth curve. (1/x)

These 2027 figures aren't quite right, but 2027 will still have lower figures than 2026.

Central projection figures here (note there is a lot of uncertainty, especially for 2027, when it comes to EU national emigration, asylum numbers and the effects of the Earned Settlement policy): YE Dec 25: 182,000 YE Jun 26: 69,000 YE Dec 26: -41,000 YE Jun 27: -123,000 YE Dec 27: -140,000

Updated net migration projection including the latest data. I've revised the emigration estimates down for 2026. But immigration is falling much faster than I expected so that has also been revised down, leaving the net figures largely the same. Very tentatively including 2027 figures.

Today's announcement bans international students and workers from certain countries. Would have affected about 4,000 students and 300 workers last year.