New report finds nurses most likely to remain in the UK long term, high earners most likely to leave
The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) last week published a new report examining which migrants arriving on Skilled Worker visas remain in the UK long term and which leave.
Image credit: WikipediaYou can download the 41-page report here or read it online here.
The report draws on linked Home Office administrative data covering migrants who entered the Skilled Worker route (including its predecessor, the Tier 2 (General) route, and the Health and Care Worker visa) between 2014 and 2024. It is described as "a first step towards better understanding variation in stay rates across migrants, helping to refine our understanding of the impacts of migration on the UK and informing immigration policy through its implications for long-term integration outcomes."
The MAC cautions that what it terms 'stay rates' refers only to the holding of valid immigration status in the UK, and that it is not currently possible to know whether those individuals have physically remained in the country.
Overall, the MAC finds that five-year stay rates have risen steadily in recent years, from 74% for those arriving in 2014 to 85% for those arriving in 2019, and vary significantly across a range of factors Migrants from wealthier countries are less likely to stay long term, while those from Africa, Southern Asia, and non-EU European countries show the highest retention. Female migrants are more likely to remain than males. Younger migrants aged under 45 are more likely to remain than those over 45. The sector a migrant works in also has a strong bearing on outcomes, with health and care workers among the most likely to remain and higher education professionals among the most likely to leave. Salary too plays a role, with lower earners proving more likely to stay than higher earners.
With regard to the sector of employment, 88.2% of migrants working in the human health and social work sector still held valid immigration status after five years, compared to only 76.4% of those working in other industries. Nurses in particular show consistently high retention, with 94% still holding valid immigration status five years after arrival. At the other end of the spectrum, the education sector has markedly lower stay rates, driven by higher education roles where, the report notes, "short-term contracts and internationally mobile career paths may contribute to earlier exits."
On salary, migrants initially earning less than £40,000 have the highest stay rates compared to migrants on higher salary bands, while those earning over £125,000 show the lowest rates of long-term retention. The MAC cautions, however, that the true departure rate among the highest earners may be even higher than the data suggests, since longer initial visa durations for this group make early exits harder to detect.
The report also finds that the stay rate of migrants has appeared to increase with successive migrant cohorts, and that this trend cannot be explained simply by changes in the composition of arrivals over time. The increase predates the post-Brexit immigration reforms of December 2020 and the MAC states that its underlying causes remain unclear.
The MAC notes that its findings are directly relevant to the Government's current proposals for a system of "earned settlement". It observes that groups with lower stay rates, such as higher earners and those working in higher education, could be more susceptible to being deterred by a less generous settlement offer. In contrast, health and care workers and lower-paid migrants already show very high rates of long-term commitment to remaining in the UK. The MAC concludes that while these factors will refine future fiscal estimates for specific groups, they are unlikely to alter the broad picture that the Skilled Worker route is, on average, "significantly fiscally positive" for those entering at or above the salary thresholds set out in the Immigration Rules.
The report's overall conclusions are excerpted and reproduced below:
Who Stays, Who Leaves? Evidence from Administrative Records on the Skilled Worker Route
May 2026
MAC
MIGRATION ADVISORY COMMITTEE
[…]
Chapter 5: Conclusions and Future Work
Conclusion
By using a novel dataset constructed from Home Office administrative data, this paper presents several factors that may affect the stay rate of migrants who entered the Skilled Worker route and its predecessor, the Tier 2 (General) route, as main applicants between 2014 and 2024. We first examined each factor in isolation (the univariate analysis in Chapter 4) before turning to multivariate regression analysis to determine which of these are meaningful once we control for other factors. We stress again that the regression analysis is limited to migrants who entered Skilled Worker routes between 2014 and 2019 under the Tier 2 (General) system, and the results will not necessarily hold for migrants who entered afterwards, under the Skilled Worker system.
Stay rates are defined in this analysis as continuing to hold valid immigration status in the UK. It is not currently possible to know whether the individuals physically remain in the UK even where they hold a valid immigration status. Our analysis consistently demonstrates the effect of several factors on stay rates which persist even when controlling for other factors. Firstly, female migrants are more likely to stay than male migrants. Secondly, those who apply for their visa from within the UK (for example, because they are switching from another visa) are more likely to stay than those who apply from outside the country. Thirdly, migrants who enter Skilled Worker routes in age bands of 45 and over are less likely to stay than those who enter Skilled Worker routes when younger.
In the regression analysis, we find that migrants entering Skilled Worker routes between 2014 and 2019 from African, Western Asian, Southern Asian and non-EU European countries were the most likely to stay in the UK, while migrants from North America and Oceania were least likely to stay. This aligns with our univariate analysis of stay rate by nationality for the most common migrant nationalities, in which African and Southern Asian nationalities are shown to have particularly high stay rates relative to other countries. It appears that the GDP per capita of the migrant's country of nationality matters: migrants from wealthier countries were, on average, less likely to stay long term.
Where migrants reside within the UK also affects their stay rate. Using the nation or region of a migrant's employer as a proxy for their nation or region of residence, our univariate analysis indicates that migrants working in Scotland and Wales demonstrate the lowest stay rates among UK nations and regions. This finding is confirmed by the regression analysis, which also found that all UK nations and regions had lower odds of retaining migrants than London.
In the Fiscal Impact of Immigration report, the MAC observed that the stay rate of migrants has appeared to increase with successive migrant cohorts (i.e. more recent migrants are more likely to stay), but until now it has not been clear whether this result is driven by cohort compositional effects (e.g. changing nationalities, ages, industries of migrant cohorts). A year-on-year increase in the stay rate is persistent across both our univariate analysis and multivariate regression analysis indicating that drivers of this increase are not due simply to compositional factors included in the model. It may be that policy changes made the UK more attractive to migrants who wished to settle abroad in the long term. However, there could also be other factors at play, including compositional changes not captured in our model. Note that the increasing stay rate over time is not confined to the post-EU exit period but started under the previous policy regime (2014 to 2019) during a period of relative policy stability. It is not possible to determine the drivers of increasing stay rates on the basis of this work alone, and it remains to be seen how policy changes from 2024 to 2025 and other trends will affect the stay rate of the most recently arrived migrants.
Our analysis shows that migrants' stay rates appear to differ substantially by industry and occupation. Stay rates are particularly high for the human health and social work industry; for migrants receiving their first Skilled Worker visa between 2014 and 2019, 88.2% of migrants working in this sector still held valid immigration status after five years. In comparison, only 76.4% of those working in other industries still held valid immigration status after five years. Occupations associated with the human health and social work industry — particularly nursing and social care — demonstrate the highest stay rates among all common Skilled Worker occupations. Stay rates for nurses remain consistently high across their time in the UK, for example, 94% of nurses still have valid immigration status five years after arrival. The stay rate for the care workers and home carers occupation initially appears similar to those for nursing, although outcomes can currently only be observed for approximately three years, reflecting the introduction of the occupation to the route in early 2022. A range of factors could plausibly contribute to higher retention in health and care sectors — such as sustained labour demand, the administrative burden of transferring licensed roles across countries, and differences in household circumstances (including the number of dependants) — though these explanations should be treated as indicative rather than definitive. In contrast, the education industry has a significantly lower stay rate than other industries. Stay patterns by occupation and employer suggest that this is largely driven by higher education roles, where short-term contracts and internationally mobile career paths may contribute to earlier exits (or potentially multiple separate shorter stays).
Our analysis also shows that migrants initially earning less than £40,000 have the highest stay rates compared to migrants on higher salary bands. The univariate analysis also showed that migrants from the highest salary band (earnings over £125,000) exhibit the lowest stay rates, particularly over the long-term (which would not be visible within the five-year horizon modelled in the regression analysis). Beyond these trends, the analyses show little consensus on trends in stay rates among migrants from salary bands between £40,000 and £125,000. We suspect, however, that the true short and medium-term stay rates of those on the highest salaries is considerably lower than suggested by our analysis, which is structurally inflated; those on the highest salaries tend to receive visas with a longer duration, and as the actual exit date of migrants is not recorded, we must rely on their visa expiry date as a proxy.
Implications
The government is currently developing proposals for a system of 'earned settlement' in which migrants would face longer or shorter routes to settlement based on factors such as their visa type, earnings, and language proficiency. The analysis in this report has focused on determinants of stay rates and does not tell us what the impacts of changing settlement rules would be on migrants or on the UK. However, our findings on historic trends provide relevant context.
For example, the analysis indicates that migrants' motivations to remain in the UK are likely to vary depending on their characteristics and circumstances. Evidence on the role of settlement policy in shaping the countries' attractiveness to prospective migrants is limited, however we may speculate that groups with lower stay rates under the current policy — such as higher earners and people working in higher education — could be more susceptible to being deterred by a less generous settlement offer (or may be more likely to leave if they are already in the UK and are moved to a longer path to settlement). By contrast, stay rates in the health and care sector and among lower paid migrants are very high, indicating a high commitment to remain in the UK.
The analysis also has implications for salary thresholds and the fiscal impacts of work-related migration. The MAC published lifetime fiscal estimates for Skilled Worker visa holders in 2025, and at that time we did not have access to data on how stay rates vary by occupation and initial earnings. Taking into account the fact that low earners and care workers are more likely to stay in the UK longer-term would reduce the projected fiscal benefit of the Skilled Worker route relative to those same workers having shorter stay durations. Note that these fiscal impacts are at the individual level and are therefore excluding broad societal impacts, for example the wider fiscal impacts of a well-functioning care sector. On the other hand, the fact that younger workers are more likely to stay than older workers pushes the fiscal contribution upwards, since younger workers have more of their working, tax-paying lives ahead of them. These factors are unlikely to change the overall picture that the route is, on average, significantly fiscally positive for those initially entering on salaries at or above the current levels required in the Immigration Rules. However, taking it into account in future will allow us to produce more refined fiscal estimates for specific groups.