Indian nurses outnumber Filipino counterparts in UK

Nurses and midwives trained in India outnumbered their Filipino counterparts in the U.K. for the first time this year, as Asian workers fill vacancies in sectors from health care to agriculture seven years after Brexit triggered an exodus of EU citizens, recent figures show.

Before Britain voted to leave the European Union, citizens from the bloc were free to live and work in the U.K. With an aging population, Britain’s industries and services were kept running by an inflow of European workers. The National Health Service, in particular, benefited hugely from EU labor because it was already facing shortages after the government cut spending and downsized public services to balance the books following the 2007-2008 credit crisis.

England had a shortfall of 40,000 nursing staff at the end of last year, based on NHS figures. Against this backdrop, the U.K.’s post-Brexit immigration policy has made it easier for Asians to take such jobs more easily.

“The U.K. is a popular destination,” said John (not his real name), 25, who qualified as a nurse in Southern India in January 2022 and moved to the U.K. to work in the NHS soon after, following in the footsteps of others from his school. Many British hospital trusts now have a section on their recruitment pages aimed at Indian nurses, offering to pay for their tuition and exam fees, accommodation, and even airfare.

There are now 48,395 nurses, midwives and nursing associates trained in India registered to work in the U.K., based on March figures from the Nursing and Midwifery Council. For the first time, that figure was higher than the 45,472 people trained in the Philippines. By contrast, there are 26,805 workers from the European Economic Area — which includes the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway — working in the field, down more than 20% versus September 2017.

John set his sights on the U.K. because of “career progression, standards. The work experience is good here,” he said. “If you get used to working here, you won’t want to work back home.”

Indeed, Marimouttou Coumarassamy, founder and chair of British Indian Nurses Association, said the conversation around career progression has changed for the better for Indian nurses. Having worked his way up to become the deputy chief operating officer at a major Midlands hospital trust, the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health unit, he said his advice to new arrivals is to aim high.

“You are not coming here to work as a front-line staff nurse for the next 20 years,” he said. “We need to think about how we are going to grow you, and help you to progress in your career within the NHS.”

The annual number of Indian nurses and midwives joining the British register has grown rapidly, to 10,841 as of March 2023, up from just 638 in March 2018, according to the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The number of Filipinos grew to 5,118 from 1,702 over the same period.

The British government’s vow to employ an additional 50,000 nurses by 2024 is providing “top-down political drive,” said Jim Buchan, a professor and senior visiting fellow at the Health Foundation, an independent charity. He pointed to funds being made available to NHS employers to recruit internationally to reach the target.

Since November 2021, the U.K. has signed agreements with India, Kenya, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines and Sri Lanka to facilitate the recruitment of health care workers. These agreements allow managed recruitment of health care workers from countries facing their own shortages, such as Nepal, where nurses joining the British register rose from a mere 37 in March 2018 to 295 in March 2023. Recruits from Kenya also rose significantly, although those from Malaysia and Sri Lanka remained largely unchanged.

The Philippines is a leading global supplier of nurses, but the outflow of talent has led to labor shortages at home. The country’s Department of Health recently announced plans to hire thousands of unlicensed nurses to fill vacancies in government hospitals. India, too, faces a dearth of nurses and the government is hoping to address the problem by opening 157 new nursing colleges within two years to meet domestic demand.

Overall, South Asia is the biggest contributor of skilled workers to the U.K., making up nearly half the 28,390 such visas issued in the first quarter of this year, based on government figures. The U.K. has also granted “Global Talent Visas” to 1,536 Indians working in academia or research, arts and culture, and digital technology since the program’s introduction in February 2020. Indians are the largest group to have gained this visa, followed by a recent surge of Russians.

A cut in the skills requirement is a factor in rising immigration, said Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford.

“Instead of having to be in a graduate job, they made middle-skilled occupations eligible,” said Sumption. Aiming to attract a bigger pool of workers, the minimum salary for skilled workers was reduced by about 4,000 pounds ($5,110) to 26,200 pounds. In the health care sector, the government has lowered the bar so that anyone can apply to join.

Agriculture is another sector that is benefiting from Asian labor. EU nationals made up to 98% of the seasonal agricultural workforce in the U.K in the past. But under the new post-Brexit scheme for seasonal workers, up to 40% of seasonal agricultural workers now come from the Central Asian countries of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, with a growing number from Nepal and Indonesia.

Added to this mix are Hong Kongers who have come for a different reason. The U.K. Home Office says it has granted over 130,000 Hong Kong residents and dependents British National Overseas (BNO) visas, which offer a new route to citizenship. These were granted in response to Beijing’s crackdown on dissent. Nikkei Asia