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UK grants of work visas fell sharply in 2025 in a stark indication of the impact of tougher immigration policies, but there was little change in the number claiming asylum, Home Office figures showed on Thursday.
The number of work-related visas granted fell to 168,000 in the year to December, down by a fifth from the previous year and half the level in 2023, when the post-Brexit surge in immigration was at its peak.
The figures will reinforce Treasury fears that the political drive to cut net immigration will hit tax revenues without swiftly defusing public concern over irregular small-boat crossings in the English Channel.
Net migration to the UK has already fallen far more than the Office for Budget Responsibility, the fiscal watchdog, was expecting at November’s Budget. The OBR is likely to flag the potential impact when chancellor Rachel Reeves presents new forecasts for the public finances next week.
The drop in work visas largely reflected the tougher scrutiny and then closure of a visa route for care staff but grants to skilled workers, who must now meet higher salary requirements, also fell by a third from 2024.
The Home Office said the drop in applications for skilled work visas was concentrated in the food and hospitality sector — where many roles would no longer meet new rules restricting visas to graduate occupations — but also reflected “market saturation” in the technology sector.
The number of visas granted for study at UK universities was little changed from 2024, at 407,000. However, including both students and their dependants, there was a drop of more than a third from the peak in the year to June 2023.
Claims for asylum fell by 4 per cent from the year to December 2024 to 101,000, with half of claimants arriving via irregular routes such as small boats. Most of the remainder were already in the UK on other types of visa.
But the government has made some progress in reducing the number of asylum seekers housed in hotels, an issue that sparked protests across the country last summer, as well as reducing the backlog of people waiting for an initial decision on their claims.
More than 30,000 asylum seekers were housed in hotels at the end of 2025, a 20 per cent drop compared with the same period the year before and 45 per cent lower than the peak in September 2023, when 56,108 people were in hotels.
At the end of 2025, there were about 65,000 people awaiting an initial decision on their asylum claim, almost half the total from a year earlier. An increase in decisions helped drive the number of asylum-related returns to almost 12,000 in 2025, roughly a quarter more than the previous year.
The Home Office said the figures show “real progress as we restore order and control to our borders”.
“We have removed nearly 60,000 illegal migrants, numbers in asylum hotels are down, law enforcement action against people smugglers is at record levels and we are bearing down on the asylum backlog,” it said. “But we must go further. The number of people crossing the Channel is too high and too many hotels remain in use.”