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These workers aren’t in obscure industries, they help us to look after our health, provide us with homes to live in and keep our tourism trade ticking.

Dive into the detail

The results of our survey have implications for all sectors of the economy, but several sectors are particularly vulnerable to shortages of skills currently supplied by non-British workers. In the nine sectors selected for inclusion in our survey, four stand out in terms of size of the non-British worker contribution. Health and social work (both public and private) has the largest number of non-British workers from the EU. In terms of the share of sectoral employment, food and accommodation is most reliant on non-British workers (over a fifth are non-British citizens); followed by wholesale and retail sector (non-British workers make up almost 10 per cent of total sector employment).

The no. of foreign workers by sector in the UK

  UK EU Non EU Total
Manufacturing 2560,000 300,000 90,000 2,950,000
Migrant worker % & total Total 390,000 10.3% 3.1% 13.3%
Wholesale, retail & repair of motor vehicles 3,720,000 250,000 140,000 4,110,000
Migrant worker % & total Total 390,000 6% 3.5% 9.5%
Transport and storage 1,370,000 150,000 70,000 1,590,000
Migrant worker % & total Total 220,000 9.2% 4.4% 13.5%
Accommodation and food services 1,300,000 230,000 110,000 1,640,000
Migrant worker % & total Total 340,000 14.2% 6.9% 21.1%
Information and communication 1,060,000 70,000 90,000 1,220,000
Migrant worker % & total Total 160,000 6.1% 7.3% 13.4%
Financial and insurance activities 1,130,000 70,000 60,000 1,260,000
Migrant worker % & total Total 130,000 5.8% 5% 10.8%
Professional, scientific and technical activities 2,030,000 120,000 90,000 2,240,000
Migrant worker % & total Total 210,000 5.3% 4.2% 9.6%
Education 3,020,000 140,000 100,000 3,260,000
Migrant worker % & total Total 240,000 4.3% 3.2% 7.5%
Human health and social work activities 3,720,000 190,000 210,000 4,120,000
Migrant worker % & total Total 400,000 4.6% 5.1% 9.7%
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