Institutional drivers of irregularity in the care sector in the United Kingdom

Irregularity is often framed as a personal characteristic rather than the outcome of institutional processes. However, migrant irregularity in the UK often emerges from the interaction of immigration policy, labour markets, welfare systems, and sectoral institutions.

In this blog post, we draw on findings from the PRIME Project in the adult social care (ASC) sector to show how irregularity is produced in older adult care. We then look at parallels with childcare, drawing on Laura Berro Yoldi’s ongoing PhD research on au pairs’ experiences and working conditions in the UK after Brexit.

We argue that the structural underfunding of childcare and older adult care in the UK drives down wages, weakens labour protections, and generates pathways into irregularity across both sectors. Finally, we call for future research engagement with profit, financialisation, and funding models across childcare, adult social care, and children’s social care.

Producing irregularity – the Health and Care Worker Visa in the UK

The Health and Care Worker (HCW) visa was extended to Care Workers and Senior Care Workers in 2022 to address severe labour shortages in adult social care.  More than two hundred thousand migrant workers entered the sector but were absorbed into a system already weakened by over a decade of real‑terms funding cuts, fragmented commissioning, uneven enforcement, and large-scale privatisation. These pressures combined produced irregularity.

Irregularity emerged from the interaction of visa design with labour‑market, welfare, and sector‑specific institutions. Tying visas to sponsoring employers made workers dependent on their employers. Increasing corporatisation and financialisation, as well as opaque subcontracting chains, have created space for unlawful recruitment fees, fake job offers, and the withholding of promised hours. The No Recourse to Public Funds condition, which bars migrants from accessing almost all forms of welfare, means that workers who lose their employment have no safety net. Those who lost their jobs had only 60 days to secure a new visa sponsor, a deadline many could not meet. The outcome is that an estimated 39,000 people and their families have been rendered irregular and destitute.

Irregularity across care systems

The production of irregularity is not confined to adult social care. The institutional dynamics that produce irregular status among care workers also shape au pairs’ experiences. Across both childcare and adult social care, these patterns reveal structural weaknesses in the UK’s care systems. These shortcomings cut across different forms of care, revealing how institutional design generates vulnerability, constrains workers’ rights, and creates pathways into irregularity. It is within this wider landscape that the irregularisation of au pairs must be understood.

Although au pairs were not formally recognised as workers until April 2024, they have historically required a permit to participate in the UK labour market. Four factors combined produce irregularity among au pairs. First, the acute demand for au pairs among families living in the UK is a consequence of the lack of universal, affordable childcare. Second, the abolition of the au pair visa in 2008. Third, the persistent framing that au pairing is a form of cultural exchange rather than an employment relationship. Fourth, an absence of labour enforcement for private households and the criminalisation of workers over employers.

The case of Au pairs after Brexit

Brexit and the end of free movement closed the immigration pathway for EU citizens wishing to work as au pairs in the UK. From January 2021, those without status under the EU Settlement Scheme, which allowed EU citizens already living and working in the UK to continue to do so, were forced to use alternative routes to enter the UK, such as under Student or Charity Worker visas. Au pairs from Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Korea could also opt for the Youth Mobility Scheme. For EU citizens unable to access visas and citizens from the rest of the world wishing to work as au pairs, there is no immigration pathway despite continued demand. The continued demand for au pairs is also acknowledged in the new policy.

In 2024, au pairs were formally reclassified as workers in the UK, granting them entitlement to the National Minimum Wage. While this represents a significant regulatory milestone, its protections depend on legal status, excluding a growing number of irregularised au pairs. However, due to a lack of enforcement, even those with the right to work were underpaid and exploited. Among research participants in Laura Berro Yoldi’s study, including au pairs with British nationalities, EU citizens with settled status, or non-EU citizens with Youth Mobility visas, wages below £5 per hour were widespread. Several participants who continued to work as au pairs after April 2024 were not paid overtime or did not have access to food. All interviewees encountered some form of violence: Economic (e.g. salary theft, salary bargaining, unpaid overtime), verbal (e.g. shouting, humiliation), sexual (e.g. grooming, sexualised atmosphere), excessive control (e.g. secret cameras, phone spying), and neglect (e.g. short notice eviction, obliged to live in a shed in the property’s garden).

 Immigration reform and implications for care

Proposed policy changes, such as Earned Settlement, which increases the baseline time to obtain settled status along with a system of penalties, together with the closure of immigration pathways for the care sector, are accelerating the production of irregularity. Proposals in the Earned Settlement model will tie Care Workers to their employer for up to fifteen years. The closure of the Health and Care Worker Visa to Care Workers and Senior Workers will mean that those who have already been made irregular will remain so. Mandatory refusal of settled status for any prior overstaying further will also entrench irregularity. Penalties for overstaying are likely to be particularly damaging for au pairs, as a single placement breakdown might lead to permanent exclusion from settlement.

For au pairs using informal apps or social media to find hosts, the lack of institutional oversight will increase the risk of overstaying, trapping workers in potentially exploitative households to avoid a life-altering legal penalty. Although the Employment Rights Act has created the Fair Work Agency as a ‘single point for workers to turn to for help’, the illegal working offence remains, locking irregularised workers out of support. This raises broader questions about the structural reforms needed to secure quality care, fair work, and decent conditions.

Conclusion 

Meaningful reform requires more than incremental regulatory milestones; it demands a whole restructuring of care funding at national, devolved, and local levels. For researchers, there is a need to engage with how care is funded, who profits from the present system, and what existing commissioning models mean for the quality of care and workers’ conditions. Without addressing how irregularity is produced, workers will be divided by legal status and excluded from basic dignity at work. The sustainability of the UK’s care infrastructure depends on labour rights not being a condition of legal status, but being accessible to all. For this to be achieved, the path dependence that produces irregularity, that is, care commissioning and models of funding, must be reformed.