Just one in five of the roughly 3.7 million jobs added to UK payrolls from 2014 through the end of 2025 went to British nationals. Non-EU nationals took about 2.5 million of them, roughly two-thirds, and EU nationals another 408,000, leaving Britons with 734,000, according to a Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) analysis of HMRC data.
The center-right think tank released the figures Tuesday in State of Dependency, a 250-page report launching its Welfare 2030 inquiry. Former Work and Pensions Secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith chairs the inquiry.
The CSJ's rounded components add to about 3.64 million against its "approximately 3.7 million" total, so foreign nationals took close to 80% of the growth and Britons about 20%. Britons still hold most of the jobs that exist: HMRC data show 25.6 million Britons among 32 million payrolled workers in December 2025, the Press Association reported.
The shift is recent. Since January 2020, Britons' payroll jobs fell in nine of the UK's 12 regions and nations while non-EU nationals' jobs rose in all 12, the CSJ's regional table shows. Summed across that table, non-EU nationals gained about 2.1 million payroll jobs, Britons lost about 186,000 and EU nationals los
