17,400 Raids. 12,300 Arrests. And the Government Says It's Just Getting Started.

The Biggest Illegal Working Crackdown in British History Is Happening Right Now — and Most Employers Still Aren't Ready

17,400.

That's the number of raids Immigration Enforcement teams carried out on UK businesses between July 2024 and December 2025.

Not over a decade. Not over five years. Eighteen months.

The result? Over 12,300 arrests. A 77% surge in raids. An 83% rise in arrests. And fines that now reach £60,000 per illegal worker for repeat offenders.

The Home Secretary called it "the highest level in British history." The Home Office released the figures on 13 January 2026, and the message was blunt: there is no hiding place.

But here's the question nobody's asking loudly enough.

If you're an employer reading this — running a care home, a restaurant, a logistics company, a construction firm, a recruitment agency — do you actually know whether your right to work checks would survive a visit?

Because 17,400 businesses just found out the hard way.

About the Authors: Graham and Vivianne Johnson ran screening and vetting companies from 2006 to 2025. They launched Vetting Hub in 2025 to make their 19 years of operational knowledge accessible at cost-effective prices. All Vetting Hub courses are CPD Certified and VH Courses is listed on the UK Register of Learning Providers (UKRLP: 10006126).

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What the January 2026 Figures Actually Tell Us

Let's break this down. Because the headline numbers are staggering, but the detail is worse.

Between July 2024 and December 2025, the Home Office's Immigration Enforcement teams:

• Conducted over 17,400 visits to businesses suspected of employing illegal workers

• Made more than 12,300 arrests

• Returned 1,726 people from the UK — a 35% increase on the previous period

• Issued over 1,090 civil penalty notices

The GOV.UK press release didn't dress it up. The government described the targets as "dodgy businesses" — nail bars, car washes, barbers, takeaway shops, construction sites, restaurants, warehouses.

But that framing hides something important.

Not every penalised employer is a rogue operator. Many are simply employers who got the paperwork wrong. Who accepted a photocopy instead of an original. Who forgot to diarise a follow-up check. Who assumed "someone else was dealing with it."

Sound familiar?

The £70,000 Restaurant That Lost Everything

Want to see what this looks like in practice?

A restaurant in Tiverton, Devon. Mumbai Kitchen. Immigration Enforcement visited in 2022. They found an individual working without the correct permissions.

A £10,000 civil penalty was issued. It went unpaid.

Two years later, in November 2024, officers returned. They found two more individuals working in breach of immigration rules. One was an overstayer whose visit visa had expired in 2007. The other was working outside the conditions of their visa.

There were also concerns about a 15-year-old working in the kitchen past 7pm.

A further £60,000 penalty was issued. Also unpaid.

Then in November 2025, another visit. Three more people found working illegally. An illegal working compliance order was granted by the courts. On 2 December 2025, the restaurant lost its alcohol licence.

Total penalties owed: £70,000. Subject to bi-monthly compliance checks. Referred to debt collection.

Three visits. Three failures. The same gaps every time: no correct right to work checks conducted. No verification of immigration status. Nobody keeping records.

The licensing committee member put it plainly: "After the 2022 raid, there was no action as everyone thought someone else was dealing with it."

That single sentence should terrify every employer reading this.

Training Tip: The Right to Work Checks & Legal Requirements Course (£49) walks through exactly what the Home Office expects at each stage of the checking process — including what happens when you get it wrong. CPD Certified, practical, and designed by practitioners who spent 19 years in operational screening work.

Why the Numbers Are Only Going Up

This isn't a one-off push. The government has made illegal working enforcement a central pillar of its immigration strategy, and the infrastructure behind it is growing fast.

£5 million in additional funding was allocated to Immigration Enforcement in 2025 specifically for illegal working operations.

Body-worn video cameras have now been rolled out to all enforcement teams across the UK, following a phased launch from September 2025. The Home Office says this will "bolster arrests and prosecutions further."

And the Organised Immigration Crime Domestic Taskforce — bringing together the National Crime Agency, Border Security Command, and Immigration Enforcement — reported a 33% surge in smuggling disruptions over the past 12 months, with nearly 4,000 disruptions since July 2024.

The message from the top is consistent and unambiguous. The Home Secretary stated: "There is no place for illegal working in our communities."

Every region in the UK saw increased activity. London led with over 2,100 arrests in 2025 alone — a 47% rise. The West Midlands recorded more than 1,100 arrests — up 76%. The South West saw a 91% increase. Northern Ireland had 187 raids leading to 234 arrests — a staggering 169% rise in arrests compared to 2024.

This is not selective. This is everywhere.

The Controversial Bit: Are You Compliant — Or Just Lucky?

Here's where it gets uncomfortable.

Most employers believe they are compliant. Most employers are wrong.

Since 2006, we ran screening and vetting companies across the UK. We saw the inside of hundreds of organisations' hiring processes. And the pattern was always the same.

HR thought they were doing checks properly. Managers assumed HR had it covered. The person actually responsible had never been trained on what a compliant check actually looks like. And nobody — absolutely nobody — was diarising follow-up checks for time-limited permissions.

When we launched Vetting Hub in 2025, this was one of the driving reasons. The gap between what employers think they're doing and what they're actually doing is enormous.

Consider the three most common failures we saw repeatedly during our operational years:

1. Accepting photocopies or screenshots

A right to work check requires sight of original documents — either physically present or via a live video link where the employer holds the originals. A photocopy, a scan, a WhatsApp photo of a passport — none of these count. The Surrey fish and chip shop owner who paid £40,000 in July 2025 made exactly this mistake. One photocopy. One oversight. Forty thousand pounds.

2. Not diarising follow-up checks

If someone has time-limited permission to work, you must check again before that permission expires. Miss the diary date, and you lose your statutory excuse from the moment their permission ran out. Every day they continue working is a day you're exposed to the full penalty.

3. Not checking at all for certain worker categories

This is about to get significantly worse. More on that below.

The Pre-Employment Screening & Vetting Essentials Course (£79) covers the full lifecycle of employment checks — from initial verification through to ongoing monitoring. It is one of the most practical courses on the VH Courses platform, and it was built from real operational experience.

The Game-Changer: Right to Work Checks Are Expanding

Everything above applies to the current rules. But the rules are about to change dramatically.

The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act is expanding right to work checks to cover workers in the gig economy, casual arrangements, subcontracted labour, and zero-hours contracts.

For the first time, employers and organisations hiring through non-traditional arrangements — food delivery, courier services, construction subcontractors, beauty salons, warehousing, cleaning contractors — will be legally required to verify immigration status.

The GOV.UK consultation on extending the right to work scheme laid out the scope. Sectors like construction, food delivery, beauty salons, courier services, and warehousing are explicitly named.

But here's the real sting.

Liability will extend through supply chains. If a subcontractor brings workers onto your site, and one of them doesn't have the right to work, your organisation could face the penalty. Not just theirs. Yours.

Think about what that means for a construction company using three layers of subcontractors. Or a hospitality group using agency staff across multiple venues. Or a logistics firm relying on self-employed drivers.

The current penalty structure doesn't change: £45,000 per worker for a first breach, £60,000 per worker for repeat offences. But the number of organisations exposed to those penalties is about to multiply.

The government has confirmed it intends to start implementing changes from April 2026. Guidance is expected to follow.

Are you ready for that?

Training Tip: The Fraud Awareness in Pre-Employment Screening Course (£59) covers how to identify fraudulent documents and deceptive practices during the hiring process. As right to work obligations expand to cover gig and casual workers, the risk of encountering fraudulent identity documents increases significantly. CPD Certified through VH Courses.

The Digital ID Mandate: What's Coming Next

On top of the expansion to gig workers, the government announced in January 2026 that mandatory digital ID will be required to prove the right to work by the end of this Parliament.

This isn't a suggestion. It's a confirmed direction of travel.

The move will create a standardised, digital-first system for right to work verification — replacing the current patchwork of manual document checks, online share codes, and Digital Verification Services.

For employers who've been struggling with the transition from Biometric Residence Permits to eVisas, this represents yet another shift in how verification works. The decommissioning of BRPs is already causing confusion, with employers uncertain about which documents they can still accept and which methods provide a valid statutory excuse.

The Digital ID & GPG45 Compliance Course (£59) is specifically designed for this transition. It covers the current GPG45 framework for digital identity verification and prepares practitioners for the coming changes. It's one of the courses we built at Vetting Hub because we saw this shift coming from our years in operational screening work.

What "Statutory Excuse" Actually Means — and Why Most Employers Don't Have One

Let's talk about the thing that actually protects you. Because it's the thing most employers misunderstand.

A statutory excuse is your legal defence against a civil penalty. If Immigration Enforcement visits and finds someone working without permission, your statutory excuse is the only thing standing between you and a fine of up to £60,000.

To establish a statutory excuse, you must demonstrate that you:

1. Conducted the prescribed right to work check before employment began

2. Used the correct method (manual, online share code, or IDSP via the Digital Verification Service)

3. Retained evidence of the check in the prescribed format

4. Conducted follow-up checks before any time-limited permission expired

Miss any single step, and your excuse falls away. The Home Office doesn't care that you tried. It cares that you followed the prescribed process exactly.

The GDPR Training Course (£45) is relevant here too, because how you store and handle right to work documentation has data protection implications. Retaining documents for too long, storing them insecurely, or sharing them inappropriately creates a second compliance risk alongside the immigration penalty.

For a comprehensive understanding of the full screening and vetting lifecycle, the Complete Guide to Employee Screening & Vetting Training on the VH Courses blog covers everything from initial checks through to ongoing monitoring.

The Real-World Raids: What Enforcement Actually Looks Like

The January 2026 figures weren't abstract statistics. They came with specific case studies that every employer should read.

Swindon construction site, 16 December 2025: A joint operation between Immigration Enforcement and Wiltshire Police. 30 Indian and Albanian men arrested. Nearly all detained for removal. Five released on strict immigration bail.

Shoreham-by-Sea warehouse, 25 November 2025: Officers visited a warehouse. 13 arrests. Eleven individuals of Brazilian and Romanian nationality detained for removal.

Wolverhampton distribution centre, June 2025: Nine people arrested. All of Indian nationality. All found working in breach of their student visas — exceeding permitted hours. A follow-up visit the following week found four more illegal workers at the same site.

Belfast nail salon, May 2025: Three workers of Vietnamese nationality arrested. One detained for removal.

Dudley Port courier depot, November 2025: 19 workers arrested. Eight detained for removal.

Every one of these businesses faced civil penalty referral notices. Every liable employer could face fines of up to £60,000 per worker.

And every one of these situations was preventable with proper right to work checks.

The BS7858 Screening Standard Course (£85) is particularly relevant for security industry employers, where the combination of SIA licensing and right to work requirements creates a dual compliance obligation that many employers fail to manage properly. For broader screening frameworks, the BS7858 pillar guide on the VH Courses blog provides in-depth guidance.

The Sectors Most at Risk Right Now

Based on the enforcement data and the direction of regulatory travel, certain sectors face disproportionate risk heading into 2026:

Hospitality and food service — Repeatedly targeted in enforcement operations. The Mumbai Kitchen case in Tiverton is just one of hundreds. Restaurants, takeaways, and food production facilities feature heavily in the Home Office's published penalty lists.

Construction — Named explicitly in the gig economy consultation. Complex subcontracting chains create layers of exposure that many firms don't even realise they have.

Care and social care — The CQC already requires DBS checks for care sector workers, but right to work obligations add another layer. The Home Office has signalled that health and social care is a "higher risk" sector subject to greater scrutiny.

Logistics and warehousing — Multiple enforcement operations in late 2025 targeted distribution centres and courier depots. The expansion to gig economy workers will hit this sector particularly hard.

Beauty and personal care — Nail bars, barber shops, and beauty salons are among the most frequently raided business types in the enforcement data.

The Creating a Screening Policy & Framework Course (£89) helps organisations build a documented, defensible screening process that covers right to work alongside other pre-employment checks. It's the kind of framework that gives you something to show an inspector — not just good intentions.

What You Should Do This Week

Not next month. Not when the regulations are finalised. This week.

1. Audit your existing right to work records. Pull every personnel file. Check that every employee has a documented right to work check, conducted before their start date, using the correct method. If there are gaps, fill them now. You cannot backdate a statutory excuse, but you can conduct a fresh check to establish ongoing compliance.

2. Diarise every time-limited permission. If any employee has a visa or permission that expires, you need a system that flags it before expiry — not after. Missing a follow-up check is the single most common reason employers lose their statutory excuse.

3. Train everyone involved in hiring. Not just HR. Managers, team leaders, site supervisors — anyone who has a hand in bringing workers into the organisation. The Home Office doesn't accept "my manager didn't know the rules" as a defence.

4. Review your supply chain exposure. If you use agency workers, subcontractors, freelancers, or gig workers, start mapping where your liability sits now — before the new rules expand it further.

5. Document everything. If it isn't written down, it didn't happen. The Home Office expects audit trails. Inspection-ready records. Evidence that your process was followed, not just that a process exists.

The Risk Assessment in Background Screening Employees Course (£59) helps employers understand how to assess and manage the people risks in their hiring processes — including how to make defensible decisions when issues arise during screening.

For employers wanting a comprehensive compliance package, the UK Employment Screening & Legal Compliance Essentials Bundle brings together the most relevant courses into a single, cost-effective package.

The Criminal Side Nobody Talks About

Civil penalties get the headlines. But there's a criminal dimension that many employers overlook entirely.

If you knowingly employ someone without the right to work — or have reasonable cause to believe they don't have permission — that's not just a civil penalty. It's a criminal offence under Section 21 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006.

The penalties? Up to five years' imprisonment and an unlimited fine.

Since 2025, Immigration Enforcement has increased the number of cases referred for criminal investigation, particularly where employers have received previous civil penalties and continued to breach the rules. The Mumbai Kitchen case in Tiverton is a textbook example: three visits over three years, the same failures each time, penalties accumulating and unpaid.

The Home Office operates on a layered enforcement model now. A first breach might result in a civil penalty. A second breach escalates the financial penalty. A third? That's when criminal investigation starts looking likely.

And it's not just the business that faces consequences. Company directors, partners, and senior managers can be personally liable. A civil penalty can lead to County Court Judgments that affect personal credit ratings, restrict the ability to act as a company director, and trigger asset seizure through bailiff enforcement.

The Preventing Hiring Fraud & Identity Fraud Course (£59) is directly relevant here. One of the triggers for criminal investigation is whether the employer had "reasonable cause to believe" someone couldn't work. Understanding how to identify document fraud and identity deception isn't optional — it's your line of defence against the most serious category of penalty.

Why "We Didn't Know" Isn't a Defence Anymore

There's a phrase that comes up repeatedly in Home Office enforcement documentation: "the employer failed to establish a statutory excuse."

Note the wording. It's not "the employer hired someone illegally." It's that the employer failed to establish their defence. The burden is on you to prove compliance, not on the Home Office to prove intent.

This is a fundamental shift from how many employers think about right to work. They assume that if they didn't mean to hire someone illegally, they'll be treated leniently. The penalty framework says otherwise.

The Code of Practice that governs civil penalties does allow for some mitigation: reporting suspected illegal working, cooperating actively during investigation, and demonstrating effective right to work systems. For a first breach, if all three factors are evidenced, the Home Office may issue a Warning Notice instead of a financial penalty.

But "may" is doing heavy lifting in that sentence. And it only applies to first breaches where the employer can demonstrate genuine systems were in place.

If your "system" is an HR manager who sometimes remembers to check passports, that's not a system. That's a gamble.

The BS7858 Training Guide for UK Employers on the VH Courses blog covers how to build systematic screening processes that create genuine audit trails — the kind that actually stand up to scrutiny.

The Bottom Line

17,400 raids in 18 months. Record-breaking enforcement. Expanded rules on the horizon. Mandatory digital ID coming. Penalties of up to £60,000 per worker.

This is not a drill.

The government has made illegal working enforcement a headline policy priority, backed it with £5 million in additional funding, equipped every enforcement team with body cameras, and published the results in national press releases.

If you're an employer who hasn't reviewed your right to work processes in the last six months, you are running a risk that no business can afford.

Since 2006, we ran screening companies and saw what happens when organisations assume compliance instead of proving it. The fines, the licence revocations, the court orders, the reputational damage — we saw all of it, up close, over nearly two decades.

That's why we launched Vetting Hub in 2025. To give employers access to the practical, operational knowledge that keeps them on the right side of enforcement.

Every course on VH Courses is CPD Certified. The platform is listed on the UK Register of Learning Providers (UKRLP: 10006126). And every course was built by people who spent 19 years in the operational reality of screening and compliance.

The Home Office is watching. The question is whether you're ready for when they knock.

For more on building a comprehensive screening and vetting framework, see our Complete Guide to Employee Screening & Vetting Training in the UK.

Read more about our background and approach on the VH Courses About Us page.