Migrant skills appreciated by UK public as key to successful integration

Polling shows British people have complex and contradictory views about migrants

People queuing at UK border control at Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport. Getty Images

More immigration to make up for shortages in health service staff and to attract more scientists is backed by a majority of UK public, new research shows.

A study carried out by pollsters Kantar Public and by Oxford University’s Migration Observatory shows there are complex and often contradictory views about immigration in Britain.

While two-thirds of the public would like to see it made easier for “high-skilled workers” to come to the UK, at the same time 52 per cent favour a reduction in immigration, the Thinking Behind the Numbers’ report found.

The polling showed support for making immigration easier for NHS staff at 62 per cent, care workers at 54 per cent and researchers and scientists at 53 per cent.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is facing growing pressure over the Conservative party's promises as Britain has seen a record increase in net migration of 606,000 in the past year, largely driven by non-EU nationals.

Yet despite the government signalling its determination to reduce the numbers of migrants arriving on small boats, immigration ranks near the bottom of the public’s priorities, the polling found.

Just over half want there to be a reduction in immigration compared to 69 per cent 10 years ago.

Dr Marina Fernandez-Reino, a Migration Observatory Senior researcher and one of the study authors, said the public’s complex views make it hard for policymakers.

“The polling shows that British people have complex and sometimes contradictory ideas about managing migration,” she said.

“A substantial number of people want low numbers, but they also want relatively liberal policies for the groups that have recently contributed most to net migration, such as skilled workers, international students and people leaving Ukraine.

“There is no clear democratic mandate for any specific set of policies.”

The public also either supported either maintaining the status quo or making immigration easier for international students, one of the largest categories of immigration to the UK.

As well as the levels of immigration the public wants, the study also looked at perceptions of immigration and the importance attached to it.

Mr Sunak pledged to reduce the backlog of 92,000 asylum claims by the end of the year as he joined a raid by immigraton enforcement officers in London

It ranks at 11 out of the 12 public policy areas presented to respondents, with “reducing inflation” and “investing more in health care” considered the first and second most important.

Two-thirds of the public are most likely to view immigrants as those coming to Britain to apply for refugee status.

“The public appear to be split between favouring a reduction in immigration while expressing a desire for making it easier for shortage occupations such as NHS and care workers to come to Britain,” said Ben Humberstone, Head of Population Studies at Kantar Public.

“This could be explained by the fact that when thinking about immigrants coming to Britain most people think of those coming as refugees, as opposed to the reality where most immigrants are coming for work or study.”

The latest UK research comes as a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that migrants were increasingly highly educated and integrating better into the countries they move to.

Nearly half of migrants to OECD nations in the past five years had a university level education, a figure that was 36 per cent for arrivals to the EU.

There has also been an improvement in integration, with 70 per cent of immigrants to the EU who have lived there for more than 10 years having an advanced proficiency in the host-country language.

These factors have fed into the employment rates of recent arrivals, which have risen in more than two-thirds of countries between 2011 and 2021.