The UK’s hostile environment and the gig economy 

The UK’s “hostile environment” immigration policy—now officially rebranded as the “compliant environment”—was designed to make life unliveable for undocumented migrants. By embedding immigration checks into everyday services like employment, housing, banking and healthcare, the policy shifts the burden of enforcement onto employers, landlords, and public bodies, creating a climate of suspicion and exclusion. More than a decade since its introduction, its reach continues to grow—now extending into the gig economy—with serious consequences for vulnerable communities.

The gig economy, offers flexible, on-demand work through digital platforms but often at the expense of job security, stability and workers’ rights. Gig economy companies hiring people did not need to carry out an immigration and right to work check. This meant many people, especially those with uncertain or precarious immigration status, were able to access a vital, if unstable, means of earning a living, whether they faced continued difficulties in trying to access advice to secure immigration status or awaiting a decision on an application and thus impacted by the ban on working. But in 2025, the government is bringing these two systems together in new and troubling ways.

In an effort to crack down on “illegal working”, the Home Office is now targeting gig economy platforms, where migrant workers are overrepresented, requiring them to carry out immigration checks. This intensifies the compliant environment and extends its reach into a sector already marked by insecurity. The consequences for migrant workers—many of whom are already marginalised—could be profound.

In March, the government introduced new rules aimed at curbing “illegal working” in the gig economy. Delivery platforms, ride-hailing apps and other digital services are now required to check workers’ immigration status, with companies facing penalties of up to £60,000 per breach. While framed as a crackdown on “rogue employers”, these measures effectively turn gig platforms into immigration enforcement tools.

The shift is particularly significant because the gig economy has operated for years in legal grey areas, with workers treated as self-employed but often lacking the independence or protections that this status should afford. Under the new rules, they become impacted by the right to work compliance requirements without gaining any corresponding employment rights.

The expansion of these policies into the gig economy follows the same logic as earlier measures: making everyday life difficult enough that undocumented people will leave the UK voluntarily. But even the government’s own data casts doubt on the effectiveness of this approach.

Previous Home Office’s research looking at drivers and impact of asylum migration journeys, highlights several fundamental problems. It found no clear evidence that tightening access to work or services successfully encourages voluntary departures. In fact, the report explicitly acknowledges that restricting access to the labour market does not appear to significantly influence people’s choice of destination in the first place.

This undermines one of the central assumptions behind recent reforms: that by making it harder to work in the UK, the government will deter people from entering “irregularly.” Yet it has been pointed out that the new focus on gig workers is unlikely to affect people arriving by small boats. Instead, it risks penalising people who are already lawfully in the UK—those nearing the expiry of their leave or protected by temporary rights under section 3C leave. This adds uncertainty during immigration checks, particularly when employers are unfamiliar with the intricacies of the immigration system.

The reforms are more likely to impact people who are already here with a temporary form of immigration status and need assistance to extend their leave. People will find themselves in administrative limbo, unable to work while waiting for the Home Office to process applications or appeals. Stripping access to work in all cases will deepen poverty and exclusion with no new support measures introduced to mitigate this and without resolving immigration status issues and may even push people out of legal pathways altogether. It amounts to a stark choice: pass the immigration checks or leave the UK.

Many people turn to the gig economy out of necessity. But the intersection of “compliant” environment policies and gig platform enforcement create a perfect storm:

• Precarity: Workers already managing unstable hours and income now face the added threat of no income due to immigration checks.
• Discrimination: In a bid to avoid fines, platforms may over correct to ensure compliance—suspending or blocking workers based on assumptions about nationality, language or appearance. Previous measures brought in such as immigration checks being done by landlords, banks and employers showed a disproportional impact on people of colour even when they had valid immigration status. 
• Exploitation: As formal gig work becomes harder to access, some workers may be pushed into more dangerous or informal arrangements, without recourse to justice when things go wrong as a result of fearing immigration enforcement.

This shift also raises serious legal concerns. Gig workers are being treated like employees for the purposes of immigration enforcement, yet they are still denied the basic rights and protections employees are entitled to because many are still considered self-employed. This includes safeguards against unfair dismissal and the ability to challenge decisions affecting their livelihoods.

As the UK economy remains heavily dependent on migrant labour – especially in gig platform labour – these changes risk deepening inequality and pushing people into hidden, further unregulated work. Reform is urgently needed to:

• Create accessible routes to regularisation for undocumented migrants  
• Lift the ban on working for those awaiting asylum decisions
• Ensure gig economy platforms are not used as tools of immigration enforcement at the expense of fairness or legal rights
• Reassess the compliant environment policies considering their documented harms

Migrant workers deserve better than a system that treats them as both essential and disposable. As enforcement seeps into every corner of working life—regardless of which political party is in power—there’s an urgent need to push for policies that uphold dignity, equality, and justice for all, regardless of immigration status.