Home Office publish immigration figures for year ending December 2022

The Home Office have confirmed that in 2022 there were 2,836,490 visas granted. This is 11% less than visas granted pre-covid, mostly due to less visit visas being granted but shows an increase in the aftermath of the global pandemic.

Find the Government's summary of the latest statistics here.

Out of the 2.8 million visas, 49% were for visits, 22% were for study routes, 15% were for work routes, 3% were for family routes and 11% were for other routes.

A total of 267,670 grants were issued on work visas. This is nearly double the amount issued in 2019. The increase is unsurprising as all overseas nationals, including EU nationals, must use the UK immigration system to live and work in the UK since the UK’s departure from the EU.

Over half the work visas issued were for the Skilled Worker category. Within this category, 54% were issued under the Health & Care route, showing a push to bring medical staff to the UK. Interestingly, the Home Office reports that Indian nationals were the highest nationality granted in the Skilled Worker route.

Sponsor licence holders are also on the increase. 57,000 organisations and institutions registered as licenced sponsors for work and study in 2022. In contrast, only around 30,000 organisations were sponsor licence holders.

Finally, 208,389 Ukrainian nationals were granted visas to come to the UK under one of the schemes opened in response to the Russian invasion in February 2022.  The majority of these grants were for the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

The Home Office have stated that there is a large degree of uncertainty around the trends in visa numbers due to the range of events and developments, such as Covid-19, end of free movement and introduction of protection visas.

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If you have any questions about these figures or simply wish to have chat about how immigration can assist your business,  please contact a member of our Immigration Team who will be happy to assist.