The Home Office has arrested more than 17,000 people for working illegally in the UK since July 2024. That is a 122% increase on the previous two years. The figures come alongside record numbers of immigration raids and arrests in the first six months of 2026 (BBC News).

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the enforcement push takes the UK to its highest level in British history. Immigration raids in the first half of 2026 rose to 7,270, a 31% increase on the same period the previous year. Those raids led to 4,756 arrests, up 20% on the comparable period in 2025.

The arrests are concentrated in three regions. London recorded 1,256 arrests, up 32% on the same period in 2025. The West Midlands saw 701, a 22% rise. South West England accounted for 693, a 44% increase. Together, those three regions have the highest arrest rates in the country.

Employers in the beauty, retail and hospitality sectors have been hit with £74m in fines so far in 2026. From 1 October, employers caught hiring illegal workers in the gig economy — including delivery riders — could face fines of up to £60,000 per illegal worker or five years in prison.

The enforcement increase did not begin with the current government. Arrests during immigration raids on businesses were already rising before Labour took office in July 2024. Between 5 July 2024 and 31 January 2025, illegal working visits and arrests both rose by approximately 38% compared to the same period 12 months earlier (gov.uk).

Through the full calendar year of 2025, the Home Office carried out 12,791 illegal working visits resulting in 8,971 arrests. That was the most successful calendar year on record for illegal working enforcement (gov.uk). Government figures covering 1 July 2024 to 31 December 2025 record more than 12,322 arrests during illegal working visits, an 83% increase on the previous period. A further 2,113 people were detained following illegal working visits between 1 October 2024 and 30 September 2025, a 75% rise.

The number of people being returned to their home countries has also climbed. Since July 2024 there has been a 50% rise in returns, totalling 2,357. Immigration Enforcement conducted 187 raids in Northern Ireland, leading to 234 arrests (gov.uk).

The broader context here matters politically. Labour's enforcement figures are being compared against numbers that were already rising before the party entered government, which makes it harder to say clearly who is responsible for the increase. The 122% headline figure covers activity from July 2024 onward, but the pre-existing upward trend suggests that factors such as Home Office resourcing decisions and intelligence-led targeting were already in play. Ministers will need to decide how much of the surge they attribute to inherited policy versus new direction.

The regional pattern also deserves attention. London, the West Midlands and the South West are not the three most populous regions of England, yet they account for the highest arrest rates. That distribution suggests enforcement may be targeting specific sectors — beauty, retail and hospitality cluster differently across the country — rather than simply following population. The South West's 44% increase, in particular, suggests enforcement is expanding beyond the big cities where illegal working has traditionally been policed most heavily.

The new gig-economy rules taking effect from 1 October extend employer liability into a part of the labour market where worker status and paperwork are often unclear. Delivery riders and similar roles often involve layers of contracting, and fines of up to £60,000 per worker, combined with the threat of prison, raise questions about who will be held responsible — the platforms, the subcontractors or the end employers.

For context, the UK figures arrive amid intensifying enforcement on the other side of the Atlantic. The daily average of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests rose to 1,300 in December 2025, according to agency figures obtained by the Deportation Data Project (Reuters). More than 12,000 people were arrested by US immigration authorities following tips from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, as of 23 July 2026 (Reuters).

The comparison is imperfect, as the US and UK enforcement systems operate under different laws and target different groups of people. Both governments, though, are operating at or near record enforcement levels, and both are facing questions about the balance between enforcement scale and the impact on the labour market.