Since 2020 Britain’s non-EU foreign workforce has grown to 3.2m—more than double its pre-pandemic size. That has fuelled anti-immigrant sentiment. The upside is a more productive and richer economy. More than one in five working-age Britons are neither employed nor seeking work; foreigners have filled the gaps. In 2022 the average migrant on a skilled-worker visa contributed a net £16,300 ($20,150) to the public purse, compared with £800 for the average Brit. The Centre for Economics and Business Research, a consultancy, reckons zero net migration that year would have resulted in a 0.94% drop in GDP in 2025.