Irregularised migrants doing domestic work in the UK

This report explores how immigration status, labour market structures, and housing arrangements intersect to produce forms of irregularity and exploitation in the domestic work sector. It draws on twenty in-depth qualitative interviews with migrant domestic workers and fourteen stakeholder interviews conducted in the West Midlands, UK, between January and May 2025.

Domestic work emerges as a labour market sector attractive to migrants holding a variety of precarious immigration statuses who are differentially exposed to exploitative employment and housing conditions. Many workers are employed in private homes under informal arrangements, with limited oversight and little recourse to report abuse due to fear of immigration enforcement.

Stakeholders, including legal experts and civil society organisations, confirm that the current system incentivises dependency and creates a ‘compliant workforce’ that sustains underpaid care and domestic labour. Visa rules, sponsor dependency, high recruitment fees, and limited access to legal aid are key drivers of this dynamic.

The report adopts an intersectional approach, highlighting how gender, race, migration histories, and family obligations shape workers’ experiences and coping strategies. Despite severe constraints, many migrant workers resist exploitation through mutual support networks and acts of self-advocacy.

The findings underscore the need for policy reform to decouple immigration enforcement from labour rights, expand legal aid, enforce workplace protections in private homes, and create accessible, secure and sustainable pathways for migrants to regularise or maintain their lawful status. 

This report is part of the Horizon Europe and UKRI-funded I-CLAIM project and contributes to understanding the dynamics of irregularity not as a fixed legal condition, but as a shifting position shaped by structural and regulatory processes, labour sector conditions and economic interests.