Brexit Areas Saw Faster Growth in Foreign Workers — and More Hardship

A new investigation by The Guardian found something surprising about the areas in England that voted most strongly for Brexit back in 2016. Those same areas have seen foreign workers grow faster there than almost anywhere else in the country. At the same time, many of those places have also become poorer compared to the rest of England over the past decade. The findings raise new questions about what has changed — and what hasn't — in the nearly ten years since the Brexit vote.

In 2016, the United Kingdom held a vote called the Brexit referendum. People were asked whether the UK should leave the European Union, a group of countries that share open borders and trade rules. Many people who voted 'Leave' said they wanted the government to have more control over who came into the country to work. However, the new data shows that foreign workers actually grew faster in Leave-voting towns than in big Remain-voting cities.

Reporters looked at government tax records to track workers across the country from 2016 to the end of 2024. In strong Leave-voting areas, the share of workers from outside the UK grew by about 100 percent — meaning it roughly doubled. Across the whole country, the share of foreign workers grew by only about 40 percent. Remain-voting areas, which are often big cities, still have more foreign workers overall, but their growth rate was slower.

One example is Wigan, a town in northwest England. In June 2016, fewer than 5 out of every 100 workers there were from outside the UK. By December 2024, that number had grown to nearly 10 out of every 100. That means the share of foreign workers in Wigan more than doubled in just eight years. This kind of change happened in many Leave-voting towns across England.

Professor Anand Menon studies how politics and society work in Europe. He explained why these changes can feel so big in smaller towns. 'An extra 10,000 immigrants in central London might barely register, but 200 new arrivals in Boston might be noticed,' he said. In other words, the same number of people arriving feels much bigger in a small town than in a giant city. The pace of change matters just as much as the total numbers.

After Brexit, migration to the UK actually went up for several years. This happened partly because the health and care industry needed workers, and the government gave out many visas for those jobs. Migration peaked at 944,000 new arrivals in the year ending March 2023. Since then, net migration has dropped, and it keeps falling as people's temporary visas run out.

Reporters also looked at data on deprivation, which measures how hard life is in different areas. This includes things like health, housing, crime, and access to services. They found that areas with the highest Remain votes — like Bristol, Cambridge, and parts of London — have improved the most since 2015. Meanwhile, strong Leave-voting areas like Boston and Skegness, Hartlepool, and parts of Warwickshire have fallen further behind.

The health gap is especially clear. Leave-voting areas have seen more people die younger, more people on health-related benefits, and more hospital visits for serious illness. They have also done worse in housing rankings, which measure whether people can afford a decent place to live near good services. Crime rankings have shifted too, with many Leave-voting areas dropping further down the list compared to a decade ago.

It is important not to assume that Brexit caused all these problems. Many Leave-voting areas were already struggling with economic problems long before 2016. Research shows that immigration has had very little effect on the wages or job chances of UK-born workers. Professor Menon also pointed out that other major events — like the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and changes in manufacturing — have hurt less wealthy areas hard.

Professor Menon had a warning about blaming everything on Brexit. He said that wealthier places with more skilled workers were always going to be more able to bounce back from hard times. He also asked why so many people voted Leave in the first place if the economy had been doing well before 2016. The data does not give simple answers, but it does show that many of the communities that hoped Brexit would bring change are still waiting to see their lives improve.