This briefing reviews the evidence on the integration of migrants into the UK labour market. Using data from the Labour Force Survey and the Annual Population Survey, we identify and assess some of the key criteria for measuring how well migrants are integrating in the workplace. We place a particular focus on skills matching: even if a migrant has a job, do they have the ‘right’ job based on their skills?

Drawing on this analysis, we assess the potential economic benefits of addressing migrant over-qualification. We do this by estimating the increase in economic output derived from improving the skills distribution of jobs taken up by highly qualified migrants so that it corresponds to the skills distribution of jobs taken up by similarly qualified UK born workers. Our findings suggest that there is a strong economic case for investing in the integration of both EU and non-EU migrants.