A major think-tank report exposes the scale of Britain’s growing reliance on overseas labour, raising fresh questions over immigration policy, welfare spending and why millions of British adults remain out of work.
Four in five jobs created in Britain over the past decade have gone to foreign nationals, while the estimated cost of benefits, pensions and child-related support for non-British citizens has reached £23 billion a year, according to a controversial new report challenging the country’s approach to immigration and welfare.
The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), founded by former Conservative Cabinet minister Sir Iain Duncan Smith, found that payroll employment increased by approximately 3.7 million between 2014 and the end of 2025. British nationals accounted for just 734,000 of those additional jobs, compared with 408,000 taken by EU nationals and around 2.5 million by people from outside the EU.
The figures lie at the heart of the think-tank’s 250-page report, State of Dependency, which argues that successive governments have become increasingly reliant on overseas workers while failing to bring millions of people already living in Britain into sustained employment.
The shift accelerated after 2020, during the period the report labels the “Boriswave” of immigration. Between January 2020 and December 2025, the number of payroll jobs held by non-EU nationals rose by 2.1 million, while those held by British nationals fell by 186,000.
British employment declined in nine of the UK’s 12 major regions, with Scotland recording the steepest fall, at 53,000 fewer payroll jobs held by British nationals. Health and social care, hospitality, administration and retail accounted for approximately two-thirds of the increase in non-EU payroll employment.
The report also highlights the growing number of foreign nationals receiving state support. An estimated 1.85 million non-British adults received at least one benefit or the state pension in 2025, after accounting for people claiming multiple forms of support. Around 1.4 million foreign nationals received working-age benefits, including approximately 1.3 million Universal Credit claimants — a 38 per cent increase since April 2022.
The CSJ estimates that support for foreign nationals cost £23 billion in 2025. £14.3 billion in working-age benefits, £2.9 billion in pension-related payments and £5.8 billion in child-related support. It forecasts that the total could approach £27 billion by 2030.
The wider welfare burden is also growing. Across England, Wales and Scotland, 6.7 million people receive at least one out-of-work benefit, equivalent to around one in six working-age adults. The working-age benefits bill is projected to reach £136.1 billion in 2026-27, almost £50 billion higher in real terms than in 2019-20.
Sir Iain said Britain’s immigration and welfare systems had been founded on the expectation that newcomers should support themselves and their families. He warned that taxpayers would be concerned about the extent to which immigration had contributed to rising welfare costs, calling for a renewed emphasis on contribution and reciprocity.
Reform UK Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick seized on the findings, saying they demonstrated the damage mass migration had done to the jobs market. He pledged that Reform would reverse Rachel Reeves’s jobs tax for British workers, funded through a levy on migrant labour.
The Government rejected the suggestion that its approach sidelined British workers. A spokesman said the vast majority of the workforce remained British nationals, pointing to a new skills-based migration system and measures intended to help young people into employment.
Ministers also cited plans to create almost one million work opportunities for young people through the youth guarantee, alongside £3.5 billion of investment to help disabled people and those with long-term health conditions move closer to the labour market.
The report presents a stark challenge for policymakers: how to manage migration, meet employers’ demand for workers and control welfare spending while tackling persistent economic inactivity.
But the figures do not, by themselves, establish that migrant workers have displaced British employees or that immigration caused the rise in benefit spending. The debate now turns on whether Britain can reduce its reliance on overseas recruitment while bringing more of its existing workforce back into work.
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