Drop in overseas workers is ‘car crash’ for UK hospitals and care homes, say experts

Hospitals and care homes in the UK face “an impending car crash”, experts have warned, as research shows the number of overseas nurses and carers has collapsed.

Analysis of Home Office quarterly datasets reveals the number of overseas nurses granted entry to the UK has fallen by 93% over three years. Just 1,777 overseas nurses were granted entry in 2025, compared with 26,100 in 2022.

Visas for workers in the caring personal service occupations category – which includes care workers, but also nursing auxiliaries, ambulance staff and dental workers – had the steepest decline in new workers from overseas in absolute terms.

The figure fell from 107,847 workers granted entry in 2023 to just 3,178 in 2025, a 97% decline over two years. Only 23 overseas care workers were granted entry in October-December 2025.

The study, by the Work Rights Centre, a charity, highlights the impact of the UK’s lurch to the right on migration, which some economists fear will compound skill shortages, inflation, tax rises and problems meeting the needs of an ageing population.

Overall, the number of skilled worker visas issued has fallen for the ninth consecutive quarter to the lowest levels since 2021, as fewer migrant care workers, nurses, scientists, therapists, education professionals and tradespeople come to the UK, where visa conditions have been systematically tightened.

In May last year, Keir Starmer said: “Every area of the immigration system, including work, family and study, will be tightened up so we have more control. Enforcement will be tougher than ever and migration numbers will fall.”

In December, warning of sharp declines in international recruitment and stalling domestic recruitment, the Royal College of Nursing’s chief nursing officer, Lynn Woolsey, said the profession faced “the worst of all worlds”.

She added: “At the current rate, the numbers of domestic nurses joining will nowhere near make up for the collapse in overseas nursing staff coming to the UK.

“Ministers need to wake up. If they continue to push overseas nursing staff out the door and make the UK an unattractive destination, while doing next to nothing to invest and grow the domestic workforce, their reforms will die.”

Commenting on the new research, Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, the chief executive of Work Rights Centre, said: “The sharp decline in migrant professionals coming to work in UK hospitals, research institutes and schools raises serious questions about the costs of the government’s narrow focus on reducing migration.

“No hospital is likely to welcome a 93% drop in overseas nurses, at a time when 25,000 nursing vacancies remain unfilled, and no British worker will want the pressure of working a double shift.

“Meanwhile, migrant workers who can still come to work in the UK face higher costs, longer routes to settlement, and risk labour exploitation by arriving on visas that tie them to employers. Ministers must look at what workers and public services really need.

“These figures paint a picture of an impending car crash for our hospitals and care homes.”

The analysis shows that visas issued to science, research, engineering and technology professionals from overseas fell to 9,072 in 2025, from a peak of 24,843 in 2022.

Meanwhile visas for teaching and education professionals fell 71% in two years – from a peak of 2,611 in 2023 to 751 in 2025. And there were 73% fewer visas issued to skilled tradespeople, from a peak of 14,079 in 2023 to 3,848 in 2025.

Vicol added that the UK faced “implications at every level, at fiscal level, at economic level, and particularly with regard to the sustainability of public services” from its approach to migration.

She added: “We know the government has really ambitious housebuilding targets. I can’t see how this decline in skilled trades professionals is going to support that.”

Nadra Ahmed, the executive chair of the National Care Association, which represents about 5,000 social care providers, said: “The reason we need international recruits is because no government has given us any solutions to getting a domestic workforce.

“Who is going to look after the people that we support? The domestic workforce is not applying, and international recruits have been excellent in the roles they fill and helped us keep the sector going.”

Simon Bottery, senior fellow for social care policy at The King’s Fund, said reduced overseas recruitment was now a “fact of life” for the social care sector, and “a much greater emphasis on recruiting and developing a homegrown workforce” was needed to sustain it.

Ahmed said the decline in visas being issued came at a time when care workers were leaving for European countries including Germany and Ireland for more “attractive conditions”, while others were “displaced” after providers lost the right to sponsor them.

“We have started to see care homes closing – people are throwing in the towel,” she said.

The Home Office was approached for comment.