Revealed: Brexit voting areas have seen faster growth in foreign workers since EU referendum | Brexit

Guardian research has found that since the Brexit referendum, regions that voted Leave have seen relatively faster growth in foreign workers.

Data analysis shows that the decade since the Brexit vote may not have lived up to the expectations of many Leave supporters, with local areas also becoming relatively more deprived over the same period.

Immigration has increased across the UK following Brexit, with the number of arrivals particularly on health and care visas reaching 944,000 in the year ending March 2023. Net migration has fallen sharply since then and continues to fall as people’s visas expire.

Analysis of government Pay As You Earn data shows that between 2016 and the end of 2024, non-UK workers grew fastest in percentage terms in areas with stronger Leave votes, as they previously made up a smaller share of the workforce.

Wigan, where the Makerfield by-election was held, follows the pattern seen in many strong Leave voting areas. In June 2016, less than 5% of payroll employees were from outside the UK. This rate increased to just under 10% in December 2024; relatively more than doubled.

The proportion of foreign workers nationwide increased by only 40% during this period, rather than doubling.

Areas that voted Remain (mostly major cities) still host the largest numbers of non-UK workers. It was Brexit strongholds that saw faster growth in foreign labor in relative terms, although larger increases were seen in absolute figures.

Figures show that regions that were less accustomed to migrant workers before Brexit are now seeing immigration become a more prominent part of local working life.

Anand Menon, director of the United Kingdom in a Changing Europe and professor of Western European politics at King’s College London, said the pace of change could often be more politically salient than the overall numbers.

“People respond to change,” he said. “We saw this in the run-up to the referendum as well. An extra 10,000 immigrants in central London might barely register, but 200 new arrivals in Boston would be noticeable.”

A separate Guardian analysis of deprivation data shows that the strongest Remain voting seats in the UK, including Bristol Central, Clapham and Brixton Hill and Cambridge, experienced the biggest improvements between 2015 and 2025, while the rest of the country stagnated or declined in relative terms.

By contrast, Brexit-voting areas such as Boston and Skegness, Hartlepool, North Warwickshire and Bedworth became relatively more deprived over the same period.

These two trends should not be confused as cause and effect. Many Leave voting areas were already marked by long-standing changes economic weaknessand wider research suggests that immigration has only a very limited impact on the wages and employment prospects of UK-born workers.

The Guardian combined government deprivation data with constituency-level estimates of the 2016 referendum vote. The analysis shows that regions with higher Leave votes tend to lag further behind on health measures, including the risk of premature death, more people receiving health benefits and more hospitalizations for serious illness, compared to regions that voted Remain in the EU.

A similar pattern is seen in deprivation rankings for housing and services, which measure physical and financial accessibility to housing and local amenities. While Leave voting areas have tended to improve or deteriorate more slowly compared to the rest of the country, Remain voting areas have moved up the leaderboards.

Changes over the past decade in crime-free rankings, which measure how much crime there is in an area compared to the rest of the country, also show a wide divide based on referendum votes.

Makerfield was again very representative. The overall deprivation ranking fell just seven places compared to other constituencies between 2015 and 2025. However, it fell 52 places in housing deprivation and 127 places in crime.

Menon warned against blaming everything on Brexit. He said: “It’s easy to blame Brexit for everything that’s gone wrong in the last few years, but that’s not the whole story. Places that are richer and have a more skilled workforce have always been more resilient.”

“Given what has happened with Covid-19, the war in Ukraine and what has happened in production, it is not surprising that less prosperous places, many of which voted to leave, have become relatively poorer.

“Remainers, in particular, seem to have gotten into the habit of dating our economic woes to 2016. But if our economy was functioning well then, why would the majority support Leave?”