British nationals accounted for just one in five additional payroll jobs since 2014, according to figures released this week showing many non-EU migrants taking new UK jobs. However, Professor Len Shackleton, an economist at the University of Buckingham, said the figures did not mean migrants were taking four out of every five new vacancies.
The academic said the figures reflected the net change in employment, rather than the nationality of people recruited whenever a new job became available. His comments came after a report by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) found that the number of jobs recorded through PAYE increased by 3.7 million between 2014 and the end of 2025. Of that increase, just 734,000 were accounted for by British nationals, compared with 408,000 for EU nationals and approximately 2.5 million for non-EU nationals.
Economist explains the figures
Professor Shackleton told Express.co.uk: "It's a subtle difference, perhaps, but important to people's perceptions. When a new job comes up, the odds are it will go to a Brit. Migrants are more likely to take up 'old' jobs freed up as people move on."
He argued that the limited growth in the British-national workforce, combined with people leaving employment and becoming economically inactive, helped explain why migrants accounted for so much of the net increase in payroll jobs. "In a way this is a good thing – at least these migrants are working!" he said, adding that too many migrants were not in employment but had arrived as dependants.
Professor Shackleton said the answer was to control immigration while finding ways to bring more economically inactive British people back into work. "We need to control/restrict the inflow of migrants and find ways of getting many of the inactive (especially NEETs) back into work," he said. "That's the real issue."
Regional and sector trends
The CSJ report, State of Dependency, argues that successive governments have relied on overseas workers to fill vacancies while the number of people claiming out-of-work benefits has increased. Its analysis found that the number of non-EU nationals in payroll employment rose by 2.1 million between 2020 and the end of 2025. Over the same period, the out-of-work benefit caseload increased by 2.3 million.
The think tank said British-national payroll employment fell in nine of the UK's 12 nations and regions between January 2020 and December 2025, while employment among non-EU nationals rose in every region. Scotland recorded the largest fall in British-national payroll jobs, down 53,000. The West Midlands saw a decline of 32,000, while the South-east lost 31,700 and the East of England 29,400. London recorded an increase of 465,200 non-EU payroll jobs over the period, followed by the South East with 284,500.
The CSJ said growth in non-EU employment had been concentrated in sectors including health and social care, hospitality, retail and administrative services.
Calls for reform
Professor Shackleton said the figures needed to be understood in the context of the huge numbers of people entering and leaving the labour market every month. He said: "I would always stress that there are huge flows in and out of the labour market each month. People enter because they've left school or university, they've returned from childbirth or caring responsibility, they've come home from a spell working abroad, or illness – and migrants. And people leave the workforce because they are going to college, they are ill, they're having a baby, their partner needs care, they are going to hospital or prison, they're emigrating."
He added: "The inflows and outflows run into hundreds of thousands each month."
The report's findings have renewed questions about why employers have increasingly relied on overseas labour while millions of people already living in Britain remain outside the workforce. Former Work and Pensions Secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who chaired the CSJ inquiry, said ministers had repeatedly turned to immigration rather than improving employment prospects in struggling communities. He said welfare reform, immigration and regional growth must be treated as parts of the same challenge.
The CSJ estimates that around 6.7 million people across England, Wales and Scotland receive at least one out-of-work benefit, equivalent to roughly one in six working-age adults. It argues that welfare and immigration policies must be reformed alongside investment in skills, employment support and struggling regional economies to help more people move into work.
