Labour’s manifesto attempted to win the argument on immigration policy without either alienating its base or ramping up xenophobic rhetoric. It argued:
Conservative policy is incoherent, with decisions on migration, skills and sectoral pay determined in isolation. Labour will bring joined-up thinking, ensuring that migration to address skills shortages triggers a plan to upskill workers and improve working conditions in the UK.
It attempted to paint net migration figures as symptomatic of the previous government’s mismanagement of the country, rather than as something objectively good or bad in themselves. It’s an approach that Jonathan Portes described earlier this year as a “systems failure” framing – he then goes on to lament how once the party took power the framing “shifted quickly towards numbers management, even in the absence of a formal net migration target.”
The linking of skills and migration is not a new one, as narrated in a recent Migration Observatory report for the Gatsby Foundation. And there were question marks from the beginning about whether the state really had the analytical capacity to shoulder such responsibility, or the (much maligned) “levers” to make any difference. Or even whether the theoretical underpinnings of such a skills-migration relationship were sound.
But in retrospect it feels like that manifesto aspiration was verging on the final throw of the dice for a sensible, depoliticised, technocratic immigration policy, rather than one based on kneejerk reaction or downright hostility to those coming to the UK from elsewhere in the world (whether in Labour’s current approach or that of a subsequent government). And as institutions dependent on both the graft and the skills of staff from all over the world, universities are highly exposed to the vagaries of migration policy and how it ripples through society.
All this is not to say that the technocratic approach that Labour promised is not being implemented – it is, slowly, and there are consequences for higher education within. But it’s happening alongside other shifts which, to be charitable, are more a question of political optics and certainly nothing to do with seeking a coherent skills ecosystem and managed labour market. In both, there is plenty for the sector to keep a careful eye on, as all the current government’s efforts to be seen “taking action” contain the seeds of ways in which the next government could go further, were it so minded, and make life even harder for international staff in higher education – for a start.
Temporary shortages
While the higher education sector’s eyes were largely trained on Labour’s moves on the graduate route and the international student levy, arguably the centrepiece of the legal migration white paper – and the central plank of government visa policy so far – was the move to make only (supposed) graduate-level jobs eligible for work visas.
The new system will see only see those scored at RQF level 6 or above remain eligible, with the exception of an official Temporary Shortage List of occupations at RQF3-5 for which work visas will be available. There’s currently a reasonably permissive interim system in place, and the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has been asked to come up with a final categorisation. Jobs will appear on the list, according to the Home Office commissioning letter,
where the MAC has advised it is justified, where there is a workforce strategy in place, and where employers seeking to recruit from abroad are committed to playing their part in increasing recruitment from the domestic workforce. Sectors must also be key to the industrial strategy or delivering critical infrastructure.
The committee completed the first stage of the process at quite a pace, engaging with Skills England and the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council to come up with 82 occupations which are “potentially crucial to prioritised sectors”. It then set up a (recently concluded) call for evidence, whereby employers and sector organisations could make the case for those occupations that made the cut at the first stage to indeed appear on the finalised list.
While the focus is on those occupations that are purportedly “lower skilled”, the impact on the operations of higher education institutions and potentially the futures of many currently working in the sector are quite notably at stake here. UCEA and UUK submitted joint evidence to the committee, setting out which of the at-risk occupations universities want to ensure continue to be eligible for work visas in the future. It’s worth quoting examples at some length to get a sense of quite how much is in scope.
Laboratory technicians: UUK and UCEA argue that removal from the list would have impacts on “research delivery and externally funded projects, laboratory-based teaching and clinical training, health, safety and regulatory compliance [and] the UK’s life sciences research capacity and competitiveness.”
IT operations technicians: removal from the temporary shortage list “would further limit institutional capacity to maintain secure and reliable digital environments.”
Photographers, audio-visual and broadcasting equipment operators: “removal from the TSL would reduce institutional capacity to deliver high-quality teaching content and public-facing activity.”
Information technology trainers: “exclusion from the TSL would reduce institutional capacity to upskill workforces and adapt to technological change, undermining productivity and service delivery.”
Bookkeepers, payroll managers, and wages clerks: their exclusion would “further constrain recruitment options for roles that are essential but often undervalued in labour market assessments.”
Science, engineering and production technicians: if these roles were no longer eligible for work visas, it would “delay research activity, reduce laboratory capacity and weaken collaboration with industry partners reliant on university-based advanced manufacturing expertise.”
Data analysts: “removal would exacerbate skills shortages, limit analytical capacity and weaken HE’s contribution to digital innovation.”
The consultation also asked representative bodies (and, separately, government departments) to explain what the longer term plan is to address the domestic workforce shortages in each occupational area:
for occupations to be placed onto the TSL, there must be an ambitious workforce strategy (henceforth referred to as a ‘jobs plan’) in place which aims to maximise the use of the UK workforce. It must include a skills strategy, a plan to work with the Department for Work and Pensions on a domestic labour strategy, and steps to manage the risk of exploitation, particularly of migrant workers.
The UCEA/UUK response is able to point to workforce initiatives in some instances – for example, the Technician Commitment for technicians – but emphasises that these are “long-term mitigations and have not been sufficient to address immediate or medium-term gaps.” It’s more for the relevant government department – for each different industrial strategy sector – to come up with a full plan, and it remains to be seen how well they will perform in this complicated task, and to what extent the new Labour Market Evidence Group will buy it.
We should find out by the summer. And it will also be important to chart how this approach lands politically. As we’ve seen, it’s rooted in how Labour’s manifesto sought to defuse migration, from a debate about numbers into something more like a debate about the economy and the education system – but since taking office they have struggled to find ways to speak about these (actually fairly radical) changes. And given that headline migration figures have been falling anyway, it’s arguably remained in the government’s interest to highlight these falls and seek to take credit.
Making visa policy follow the UK’s employment needs, rather than political or cultural preferences (however intuited), would not have been an easy sell even if the government had made a fist of trying to do so. It’s demonstrably a very long-term undertaking – part of that two-term approach to politics which Labour seems to have immediately panicked about on seeing post-election polls and headlines – and it’s not clear that it can really work in any sort of definitive, workforce-wide way, something that the Migration Advisory Committee pointed out back in 2024.
And as the examples above sets out, even if carried out in the most evidence-informed, rhetorically neutral way, it can still have big consequences for the UK higher education workforce due to the kinds of occupational roles it targets. And furthermore: even if a future government set on pursuing lower migration wanted to frame this in these labour market terms, rather than – for example – naked xenophobia, it’s easy to see how the “permissible occupations for visas” approach could be extended further. There’s nothing inherently special about RQF6+ (graduate-level) roles as a whole.
Priced out
A genuine system that considered the interplay between migration and labour market needs – whether through the imprecise proxy of “skills demand” or otherwise – would necessarily have some positive things to say about international recruitment as well. In its most realised form, such a system would be a set of interlocking models generating evidence about the value of international staff to the UK economy in the fields where they are needed.
We can see traces of that in Labour’s approach so far. The global talent visa, increasingly used by universities, is gradually being expanded. The government has even addressed the question of high immigration costs for applicants earlier this year, with Rachel Reeves saying that the government would introduce a mechanism for “reimbursing visa fees for select trailblazers in deep tech sectors and those joining the most promising UK companies in priority sectors.” There’s no detail on this yet though – aside from the above sentence which makes it sound highly limited – nor any promise that it will also cover the (much higher) immigration health surcharge.
But the lack of wider action on visa fees and health charges, despite much lobbying, points to the continued reliance on a much more simplistic approach to “managing” migration and prioritising the domestic workforce – namely, continually ramping up the cost of international recruitment for both employee and employer. The idea we explored in the previous section, that of using sector jobs plans, skills data, and long-term training reform, is a theoretically appealing one. But it has proved much more straightforward for successive governments to simply introduce and raise one financial hurdle after another.
It is pretty well established how the imposition of high visa costs, for applicants but also employer-side charges such as sponsorship licences, serves to plug Home Office shortfalls elsewhere, thus creating a disincentive to reform. The usual line is that the department adheres to the principle that “those who use and benefit from the immigration system should contribute towards the cost of operating it.” This is convenient language to elide the fact that those on work (or, equally, student) visas are greatly subsidising unrelated elements of the system.
There are other mechanisms available to discourage the recruitment of international staff through financial means, which on the surface at least can appear to speak to a technocratic skills-migration link-up. For example, Labour has raised the Immigration Skills Charge by 32 per cent since taking office (admittedly many, though far from all, higher education roles are exempt). This charge for employers has always been theoretically linked to investment in skills – a “rare example of joined-up labour force planning,” as the Social Market Foundation described it. But as the think tank’s report goes on to show, there’s no actual meaningful way in which the proceeds are reinvested in training. Labour’s immigration white paper said there would be “skills funding for priority sectors” specifically paid for out of these funds. But so far at least, the revenues continue to slosh into the Treasury black box.
One reason why this is worth flagging is that both the Conservatives and Reform have indicated that their immigration policies will include some degree of changing the price dynamics for employers around recruiting international staff (you’d also expect the applicant side of the equation, in terms of visa and health charges, to feature).
The Conservatives are putting forward an acronym-friendly Business Rebate for Investment in Training and Skills to encourage the hiring of British apprentices, explicitly in contrast to taking on overseas staff, via a direct £5,000 cash incentive. Reform’s 2024 manifesto was much more direct, containing a proposal to raise the employer national insurance rate to 20 per cent for non-British staff.
In all this we can see a marked blurring of the lines between managing the visa system in the interests of the economy and the development of the workforce versus in making choices for nakedly political reasons around what will “play well”, plus generating revenue as an added bonus that becomes hard to walk back. There’s a clear direction of travel past the next Westminster elections which sees ever more additional cost placed onto overseas recruitment.
For the hiring of international researchers, there will come a point at which the subsidising of immigration costs through research budgets (seemingly the government’s recommended solution), already unsustainable, passes the point of non-viability in many contexts. And more broadly it’s a further barrier thrown up in the paths of international staff, including those currently in the UK looking or needing to find new employment. Unless they have leave to remain, that is, and are not at the whims of the visa and sponsorship system.
Pulling up the routes
But there is an issue there.
Alongside the work visa reforms, the other plank of Labour’s most sweeping changes to immigration policy can be found in A Fairer Pathway to Settlement, the consultation launched last November which proposed a completely new system of “earned settlement” and how one qualifies for indefinite leave to remain.
This approach has nothing to do with the “labour market and skills” framing that has (haltingly, as we’ve seen) motivated changes to work visa arrangements specifically. The government – to the fury of its backbenchers, by and large – is seeking to greatly complicate the process by which immigrants to the UK can obtain permanent residence, moving the default expectation from five years to a smorgasbord approach based on occupational categories and loosely-defined “value” to the UK.
Nothing is settled yet, but the plans would see the default wait for many go up to 10 years, and even longer for refugees, care workers, visa overstayers, and others. This is proposed to apply to “everyone in the country today who has not already received indefinite leave to remain” (it would not affect, for example, EU citizens with settled status).
The retrospective application of the changes – in terms of the system in place when one arrived in the country – is one of the areas where the government is receiving most pushback from what once might have been thought of as its base. So it could be an area where post-consultation there will be some carefully hedged flexibility, though the temptation to maintain a political attack line against the Conservatives regarding post-pandemic migration could prove too much for Labour’s right to let go of.
There are some pretty drastic shifts buried within the consultation, where the finalised detail will be life-changing for many. It’s proposed that those accompanying people on work visas would now need to qualify for indefinite leave to remain in their own right. It’s even suggested as a possibility that those awarded settlement could still be left with no recourse to public funds.
For universities hoping to continue attracting overseas staff, the optics are patently terrible. In terms of recruiting researchers, where global talent visas are being used the qualifying period would be just three years (similar to now) – but as above, it’s not clear what the final situation will be for those accompanying the visa holder. Time spent on student or graduate visas doesn’t count towards settlement either, so for many the overall time spent reliant on the visa system could end up much longer than the figures in the consultation.
Where the standard skilled worker visas is used, the main ways to receive reductions in wait are proposed to be either having had a taxable income of £50,270 for three years immediately prior to applying for settlement, or else that the applicant “has worked in the community (volunteering, etc)”, a proposal that is, let’s say, ill-defined at this point. On the salary test – there’s even a bigger time discount where income has been above £125,140 – it’s immediately apparent that most postdoc, teaching and professional roles within higher education are generally not going to reach the government’s bar for being “valuable” enough.
The consultation closed in early February. A veritable torrent of dissenting submissions will certainly have been received, and the government will now need to work out how much it is willing to bend.
The House of Commons Home Affairs Committee ran a similar call for evidence, which gives a pretty clear indication how higher education organisations and staff will have answered the government’s own consultation. Again, the UCEA/UUK contribution highlights in no uncertain terms the impact on universities themselves:
Lengthened or more complex settlement pathway puts greater strain on resources, including administrative oversight, immigration compliance and financial sponsorship costs. Several institutions noted that further tightening of settlement routes could force them to limit the number of international researchers and academic staff they recruit.
Indeed, there’s clear evidence that the changes of the past few years have already had an impact:
In some cases […] HEIs have unfortunately been unable to provide sponsorship extensions to existing individuals who no longer meet the uplifted salary threshold, resulting in family units losing their right to remain in the UK.
But the employers’ joint submission also highlights the impact on current staff, noting that “existing international staff are very anxious about the proposed changes” and that “HR immigration and global mobility teams have seen a significant increase in queries from staff seeking clarification, reassurance and help.”
Individuals have adhered to their visa terms and conditions, and many have saved money, taken out a mortgage to establish a home in the UK and relocated their family based on knowing they will be able to apply for settlement after five years. HEIs reported that the anxiety within this population of the workforce is more heightened than ever.
Submissions to the committee from both UCU and the University of Cambridge take the sensible step of inviting international staff to put both the uncertainty and unfairness in their own words. Here’s a representative but by no means exhaustive selection:
The proposed ‘earned’ settlement requirements make little sense: many criteria (such as not accessing benefits or paying NI) are already mandatory for migrants. Other possible criteria – volunteering, owning property – are inaccessible to many because of workload, financial constraints, or the difficulty migrants face obtaining credit. These would effectively privilege those with wealth.
It is impossible to convey the anxiety of living without secure status. Even when following every rule, the government can change the requirements overnight, as is happening now. Every trip abroad carries risks; every application could be refused; and my life in the UK – after four years – could be uprooted without warning.
The potential changes of ILR have made me reconsider whether the UK can provide the stability I need for me and my family. The financial burden of a doubled Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) and increase in taxation, combined with the uncertainty in our residency status makes my family and I feel unwelcomed, and is making us evaluate other places in which our contributions to society may be valued differently.
Because we are on temporary visas, we cannot purchase a home. We had saved a sufficient deposit and intended to buy a property this summer, but the uncertainty surrounding ILR eligibility has left us in limbo. Without any family support network in the UK and access to government childcare schemes due to our visa status, we pay £1,600 per month (£19,200 annually) for our daughter’s nursery. This is a significant financial burden despite both of us working full-time and contributing to the UK economy.
I am a technician under the skilled worker visa since August 2021 and the proposal to increase settlement qualifying period to 10 years not only for new arrivals but also for people in the UK has had a profound effect on my mental health in the past months. And it will have a devastating financial effect if it does come into effect altering my future plans significantly.
Extending the ILR timeframe to ten years would significantly disrupt my life plans and financial stability. I moved to the UK with the understanding that after five years of continuous residence and substantial visa costs, I would have the right to settle permanently. This change would mean an additional five years of uncertainty and expense, forcing me to continue paying for visas while others in similar circumstances are saving for a home or building long-term security. The financial burden is considerable, and the emotional strain of not being able to settle with my partner in the country we have chosen as our home is even greater.
The full slate of submissions to the committee can be seen here – various other sector-adjacent groups supplied evidence as well. Looking at organisations that employ researchers as a whole, there were calls for exemptions by sector and for PhD holders, for university staff to be counted as public sector workers (and thus qualify for a shorter route to settlement), for dependants to have the same qualifying period as main visa holders, and for the rules to apply for new visa grants rather than those already here.
It’s worth emphasising again that the exact outcome following consultation is not a given, and is probably tied to wider struggles around the future direction of the Labour party taking place right now. But it’s clear that ripping up settlement rules, changing the terms which international staff understood when they came to the country, privileging lone applicants over those with families, and generally making indefinite leave to remain less attainable than it has any right to be, will all contribute to making many working in higher education and research – to say nothing of everyone else affected – less welcome, more precariously employed, and more likely to leave the UK or never come at all.
The future
Reform UK has trumpeted this week how would do away with indefinite leave to remain completely. Labour has come out strongly against it, but its own immigration policy plans are an attempt to occupy similar political ground: less extreme, but still hugely damaging to most groups looking to remain long-term in the UK.
Despite the current government having come to power on a promise to manage the visa system as part of a wider stewardship role connected to industrial strategy, domestic training and labour market evidence, we’re yet to see how this plays out, and there are quite a few reasons to suspect it might not really work. Plus it’s important to note how the operationalising of a means to link skills and migration will inevitably end up baking hierarchies into the system, ones which can easily be used to turn the screw further in future.
But if the government had stuck firm to what we might call the technocratic approach to work visas, then there would remain a clear opportunity to marshall evidence in favour of international recruitment (while at the same time thinking seriously about the role of the higher education system in training the UK’s scientific, social, technical and cultural workforce, which isn’t a bad side-effect). Instead, Labour has continued to gesture at this via increases to the cost of the visa system and employing overseas staff, while in other areas – particularly, but not only, in the routes to settlement consultation – it has given in to populist tendencies that have little to do with what’s best for the UK either as an economy or a society, and everything to do with its political anxieties and factional power struggles.
It’s probably not unfair to say that the higher education sector remains geared up to fight battles about immigration policy which follow a fairly simple paradigm, with an emphasis on “permission to recruit” – more vocally for international students, certainly, but also typically quite effectively setting out the importance of having a suitable visa system in place for higher education staff.
And it’s likely true to say that, both for the rest of this Parliament and for what comes after, the real battles are going to be more complex ones around rights and circumstances for those who are already here – battles that don’t have immediate economic pay-offs but are more important all the same.