The Daily Mail’s front page claims four out of five new UK jobs went to foreigners over the past decade. The statistic comes from genuine research, but official HMRC data reveal important qualifications that change how the headline should be understood.
The Daily Mail has led its Wednesday 14 October front page with the headline “4 out of 5 new jobs went to foreigners in the past decade”. The claim is based on a report from the Centre for Social Justice, using official HM Revenue and Customs data. But while the underlying figures are genuine, the headline risks giving readers a misleading impression of how Britain’s jobs market actually works.
Where does the four-in-five figure come from?
The headline follows the publication of State of Dependency, a report released on 13 October 2026 by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a centre-right think tank.
Its research, part of an inquiry chaired by former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, examined the number of jobs recorded through the UK’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system.
According to the CSJ, the number of payroll jobs increased by approximately 3.7 million between 2014 and December 2025.
Its breakdown of that increase was:
- 734,000 additional payroll jobs recorded against British nationals.
- 408,000 additional jobs recorded against EU nationals.
- 2.5 million additional jobs recorded against non-EU nationals.
The figures are rounded, but they broadly produce the Daily Mail’s four-in-five calculation.
There is no need to dispute the arithmetic to question the headline. The real issue is what those numbers represent.
New jobs are not the same as newly hired workers
This is the distinction missing from the front page.
HMRC’s statistics measure the number of PAYE employment positions recorded at different points in time.
They do not track every job advertised, every application submitted or every decision made by an employer.
The 3.7 million figure represents the approximate net increase in recorded payroll employment positions over the period.
That is not the same as saying four out of every five individual vacancies were awarded to someone from overseas.
For example, the total number of payroll jobs held by British nationals can rise relatively slowly even while millions of British workers are hired, retire, change employers or leave the workforce.
Similarly, increases in positions held by non-UK nationals do not establish that British applicants were rejected in their favour.
The Daily Mail’s wording may encourage precisely that interpretation, but the statistics do not demonstrate it.
HMRC says 80% of payroll jobs are held by UK nationals
Another important statistic receives considerably less attention.
According to the official HMRC figures, the share of PAYE employment positions recorded against UK nationals was:
| Nationality group | July 2014 | December 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| UK nationals | 88% | 80% |
| EU nationals | 6% | 7% |
| Non-EU nationals | 6% | 13% |
In December 2025, approximately 25.6 million payroll positions were recorded against UK nationals.
The increase in non-UK national employment is a genuine and substantial development, but it is also true that UK nationals continued to account for four-fifths of the country’s payroll positions.
The two findings are not contradictory.
One describes the share of the entire payroll workforce. The other describes how the net increase was distributed.
Presenting only the second figure gives readers a very different impression of the labour market.
Some of the people counted as foreigners are actually British citizens
Perhaps the most significant qualification comes directly from HMRC.
Its published methodology explains that nationality is recorded when an individual registers for a National Insurance number.
That nationality record is not automatically updated when somebody subsequently becomes a British citizen.
Consequently, someone who originally registered as an Indian, Polish or Nigerian national but later obtained British citizenship may still be counted in the non-UK nationality statistics.
HMRC explicitly warns that the recorded non-UK national totals are higher than the true figures.
This does not mean every person recorded as a non-UK national has become British. Nor does HMRC provide an exact corrected total in this release.
It does mean that treating the entire non-UK category as a precise count of present-day foreigners is not justified.
There is another technical limitation: people can hold multiple PAYE jobs, meaning these figures count employment positions rather than individual workers. Self-employed work is excluded.
There is another statistical qualification
The comparison runs from July 2014 to December 2025.
HMRC states that its nationality-based payroll statistics are not seasonally adjusted and advises using the same calendar month when comparing employment changes between years.
Seasonal employment patterns can affect payroll totals.
Comparing July with December does not automatically invalidate the long-term trend, but it adds another reason to be careful about presenting the resulting number as an exact measurement of jobs created.
The broad increase in non-EU payroll employment is clear. The precise four-in-five headline deserves more caution.
The Centre for Social Justice raises legitimate questions
None of these qualifications means the CSJ’s wider concerns should be dismissed.
Its report argues that successive governments have relied too heavily on overseas labour while failing to invest sufficiently in skills, employment support and economically disadvantaged communities.
The CSJ also reports that non-EU payroll positions increased by approximately 2.1 million since 2020, with substantial growth in health and social care, hospitality, retail and support services.
Meanwhile, the number of people receiving out-of-work benefits has risen significantly.
These developments raise serious questions about training, wages, recruitment, economic inactivity and the effectiveness of government policy.
But increases in migrant employment and benefit claimant numbers occurring together do not, on their own, demonstrate that one caused the other.
Determining whether overseas recruitment has displaced domestic workers requires more detailed evidence about employers, skills, vacancies, wages and the circumstances of people outside employment.
The CSJ offers a particular interpretation of Britain’s economic problems. Its arguments deserve scrutiny on their merits, rather than being reduced to a single dramatic statistic.
Why the Daily Mail’s wording matters
Newspaper headlines are intended to communicate complicated stories quickly.
But the choice of words can fundamentally change what readers understand.
“Four out of five new jobs went to foreigners” suggests a direct allocation of employment opportunities.
“Four out of five additional payroll positions were recorded against non-UK nationalities” describes the underlying statistic much more accurately.
The second version is less dramatic, but it tells readers what was actually measured.
The distinction matters particularly when immigration is already a politically charged issue.
Readers deserve to know whether they are being shown evidence that British people are losing out in recruitment or simply a change in the recorded composition of the workforce.
Those are not interchangeable claims.
The verdict: real figures, misleading impression
The Daily Mail has not invented the four-in-five statistic. It reflects the Centre for Social Justice’s analysis of genuine HMRC data.
However, its front-page wording leaves out several essential qualifications:
- The statistic measures net changes in payroll employment, not the outcome of individual hiring decisions.
- UK nationals still accounted for 80% of PAYE positions in December 2025.
- HMRC’s nationality records can classify naturalised British citizens as non-UK nationals.
- The figures count jobs rather than individual people and exclude self-employment.
- The underlying series is not seasonally adjusted.
Immigration, employment and welfare policy are important subjects for legitimate debate.
But a legitimate debate should begin with an accurate explanation of what the evidence actually shows — not what an attention-grabbing headline might lead readers to believe.
