Friday 23 May 2025

Yesterday, the Home Office released immigration statistics for the year ending March 2025. The data spans the full range of immigration routes and reflects the early impact of recent policy changes, particularly in relation to sponsored work and dependant applicants.

Work routes
In the year ending March 2025, 192,000 grants were issued to main applicants under work-related groups. This data represents a 39% decrease compared with the previous year but a 40% increase from 2019 before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and the end of EU free movement.

Notably, the number of Health and Care Worker grants issued to main applicants have sharply decreased to 23,000 in the year ending March 2023. This figure is an 85% decrease from the peak of grants on this route in 2023.

For extensions of immigration permission, there were 434,000 grants issued to main applicants driven by applicants on Graduate, Health and Care Worker and Skilled Worker routes.

Student routes
Grants of immigration permission for international students fell by 10% to 403,000. The number of dependants dropped by 83%, compared to March 2024, to 18,000. This decrease reflects changes to the Immigration Rules introduced in January 2024, which prevent most postgraduate-taught students from bringing family members to the UK.

Chinese nationals now comprise 25% of sponsored international students, closely followed by Indian nationals at 23% of the total number.

Family routes
In the year to March 2025, 76,000 grants of immigration permission were issued under family-related routes, a 3% decrease on the previous year. Applications for the Family route decreased more sharply by 14%. These changes can be attributed to changes to the Minimum Income Requirement (MIR) for the Family route in effect from 11 April 2024.

Policy context
The statistics reflect the early effects of the Government’s policy to reduce legal migration, particularly through restrictions on dependants and tighter sponsorship rules. The Health and Care route remains the largest sponsored work category but is now subject to increased salary thresholds and more limited eligibility.

These figures arrive just days after the publication of the Government’s immigration white paper Restoring Control over the Immigration System (12 May 2025). While the data largely reflects policies already in force, including the ban on most student dependants and changes to the Health and Care route, they provide a clear backdrop to the Government’s future direction.

The year-on-year fall in dependant numbers illustrates how quickly recent restrictions have reshaped migration flows.

The white paper proposes further reductions, including higher salary thresholds, a reformed shortage occupation regime and a more restrictive Graduate route. If implemented, these measures will likely deepen the downward trend in work and study immigration observed in this release. Practitioners, sponsors and migrants should view these figures as a baseline for more significant future reforms.

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