How many people are working illegally in the UK?

The government has announced plans for a "nationwide blitz" on those working illegally in the UK.

With the number of people arriving in small boats from France up by more than 50% on the same period last year, the issue is "seen by ministers as an area of political vulnerability, one being exploited by Reform UK and the Conservatives", said The Guardian.

How many people are we talking about?

Accurately calculating the number of people living and working illegally in the UK is, not surprisingly, challenging.

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The Home Office does not publish official estimates but residual modelling by the Pew Research Center puts the number of people living in the UK illegally between 800,000 and 1.2 million. That is "one in 100 of the population", Conservative peer Baroness McIntosh told a migration debate in the House of Lords last year – "more than in any other European country".

In the last year, 7,130 people were arrested on suspicion of working illegally, according to the Home Office, an increase of 50% on the previous year.

Based on these figures, the best guess is that the UK's illicit workforce numbers in the hundreds of thousands at any one time.

How do they get work?

"On the face of it, Britain's rules appear as strict as those on the continent," said The Times. Migrants awaiting asylum cannot work for a year and even then only in a few specific sectors experiencing staffing shortages. All employers have to check their worker's documents and can be fined up to £60,000 if found to have employed someone illegally.

But Britain also has a much larger informal labour market than many other European countries. Rights to work checks only apply to employees, not for the self-employed or agency workers in the gig economy, which has experienced rapid growth in recent years.

There are reports that asylum seekers "can rent legitimate delivery-driver accounts within hours of arriving in the country – skipping employment legality checks", said Sky News. Such loopholes create an "incentive for those wanting to risk their lives coming to the UK illegally".

Sectors that rely on subcontracting and agency workers, like construction, care work and hospitality, are also believed to employ a large number of illegal workers.

What's being done?

The Home Office has said its crackdown will be a "major operation", based around "strategic, intel-driven" enforcement teams and focused on the gig economy, particularly on delivery riders.

At the same time, Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat have said they will increase the use of facial verification checks for riders after the shadow home secretary, Chris Philp, posted a widely shared video of delivery bikes packed together outside an asylum hotel near Heathrow.

The government could also adopt a stricter enforcement approach as seen on the continent. While raids on employers in the UK are mainly done in response to tip-offs, in France, for example, authorities conduct random inspections and stop people on the street or at train stations to request their papers.

Labour is also exploring the idea of introducing digital ID cards in the UK as a means of cracking down on illegal immigration. Britain and Ireland are the only European countries without an ID card system, and "critics argue" that that "has made it attractive to migrants as it is easier to live and work illegally", said The Times.