What we can't tell you · Fragmented
How many illegal-working enforcement visits, arrests and civil penalties are there, by area?
Fragmented The data exists but is held by many authorities separately, with no national compilation; coverage has to be tracked authority by authority.
Why
Three separate Home Office outputs cover the question: a rolling management-information series "Returns from the UK and illegal working activity since July 2024" (visits and arrests by English region, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, taken from live systems and stated not to be official statistics); the quarterly Immigration Enforcement transparency data (volume and value of civil penalties); and the quarterly "Illegal working penalties" reports listing named employers by region. No single official-statistics series joins visits, arrests and penalties on a consistent geography.
What is known
What is not known
- Visits, arrests and penalties at local authority level
- Penalty outcomes after objection or appeal by region
- An official-statistics series with consistent definitions across the three outputs
Who holds the data
- Home Office Immigration Enforcement
Would a Freedom of Information request help?
Possibly. Visits and arrests are held on operational systems by location and the Home Office has released regional counts on request.
Privacy and disclosure restrictions
Penalties lag visits and the publisher states the two should not be correlated directly. Named-employer lists are published only after the penalty is final.
Official sources checked
- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/returns-from-the-uk-and-illegal-working-activity-since-july-2024/illegal-working-and-enforcement-activity-to-the-end-of-june-2026
- https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/migration-transparency-data
- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/illegal-working-penalties-uk-report
Last reviewed 2026-09-02. Availability changes; if a publication now answers this question, challenge the classification below.