Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery in the UK 2026
The United Kingdom is living through the largest recorded expansion of modern slavery in its history. In 2025, the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) — the UK’s official framework for identifying and supporting victims of human trafficking and modern slavery — received 23,411 referrals of potential victims, a 22% increase on the preceding year and the highest annual total since the NRM began operating in 2009. This was the second consecutive year in which the record was broken: 2024 had already exceeded every previous year with 19,117 referrals, and 2025 surpassed that by more than four thousand additional cases. Behind every referral is a human being who has been recruited under false pretences, transported across borders, confined against their will, forced to work in agriculture, construction or the sex industry, pressed into county lines drug distribution, or subjected to some combination of all of these. These are not statistics in the abstract. They are the documented, official count of people who came to the attention of authorities — and they almost certainly represent only a fraction of the true national scale.
The Modern Slavery Act 2015, which prescribes penalties of up to life imprisonment for trafficking offences and covers England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, remains the legal backbone of the UK’s response. Scotland operates under the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015. Together, they give the UK one of the most stringent statutory frameworks in the world — a fact reflected in the country’s continued Tier 1 ranking in the US State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report, published in 2025, which places the UK among the nations making the most serious and sustained efforts to eliminate trafficking. Yet the same report points to structural weaknesses: fewer potential victims being recognised at the “reasonable grounds” stage for the second consecutive year, a backlog in conclusive grounds decisions that — though dramatically reduced — still stood at 5,758 cases at the end of 2025, and ongoing legislative tensions created by the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which civil society organisations warn may deter genuine trafficking victims from coming forward.
Key Facts About Human Trafficking in the UK 2026
FAST FACTS — Human Trafficking & Modern Slavery, UK 2026
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NRM referrals 2025 (record high) : 23,411
Year-on-year increase (2024→2025) : +22%
NRM referrals 2024 : 19,117
Child referrals 2025 : 7,028 (30% of total)
Male victims 2025 : 74% (17,350)
Female victims 2025 : 26% (6,042)
Top exploitation type (adults) : Labour (45%)
Top exploitation type (children) : Criminal (50%)
Most common nationality referred 2025 : UK nationals (22%; 5,110)
Estimated true victims of slavery in UK : 122,000–130,000
Max penalty under Modern Slavery Act 2015 : Life imprisonment
Active law enforcement investigations (Dec 2024): 2,738
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| Key Fact | Statistic |
|---|---|
| NRM referrals in 2025 (record) | 23,411 |
| Year-on-year increase (2024→2025) | 22% |
| NRM referrals in 2024 | 19,117 |
| NRM referrals in 2023 | 17,004 |
| NRM referrals in 2022 | 16,921 |
| Child referrals (aged under 18) in 2025 | 7,028 (30%) |
| Adult referrals in 2025 | 16,362 (70%) |
| Male potential victims referred (2025) | 74% (17,350) — highest ever |
| Female potential victims referred (2025) | 26% (6,042) — highest ever |
| Nationalities represented in 2025 referrals | 385 nationalities |
| Most common nationality (2025) | UK nationals — 22% (5,110) |
| Second most common nationality (2025) | Eritrean — 13% (3,083) |
| Third most common nationality (2025) | Vietnamese — 9% (1,998) |
| Estimated true number of modern slavery victims in UK | 122,000–130,000 |
| Maximum penalty under Modern Slavery Act 2015 | Life imprisonment |
| Active trafficking investigations (December 2024) | 2,738 |
| New investigations initiated in 2024 | 2,453 |
| Prosecutions (England and Wales) in 2024 | 454 defendants |
| Convictions in 2024 | 353 traffickers |
| Duty to Notify (DtN) reports in 2025 | 7,130 — highest ever |
| Cases awaiting conclusive grounds decision (end 2025) | 5,758 — down 66% from 2024 |
| UK Tier 1 ranking (US State Dept TIP Report 2025) | Maintained |
Source: UK Home Office — Modern Slavery: National Referral Mechanism and Duty to Notify Statistics, End of Year Summary 2025 (published 19 February 2026); US Department of State — 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report: United Kingdom (published 30 September 2025); Anti-Slavery International; Unseen UK
The scale of the 2025 NRM figures demands careful interpretation. The 22% year-on-year increase to 23,411 referrals is the largest single-year jump in the NRM’s history in absolute terms. Part of this increase reflects genuine growth in trafficking activity, driven by deepening global poverty, armed conflict — the data explicitly links the sharp rise in Eritrean nationals (up 81% from 2024) and Sudanese nationals to the increase in small boat arrivals from those countries — and the persistent demand for cheap, exploitable labour in the UK economy. But the increase also reflects something more encouraging: improved awareness among first responders, a growing network of trained local authorities, and greater willingness among victims to come forward. The NRM figures measure identified potential victims, not total victims — a distinction the Home Office is careful to preserve. The estimated 122,000 to 130,000 people currently living in modern slavery in the UK, per expert assessments cited by Unseen UK and Anti-Slavery International, is a multiple of the official NRM figure, a reminder that the gap between recorded cases and true prevalence remains vast.
The criminal justice picture is more mixed. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) prosecuted 454 defendants on trafficking charges in 2024 — up from 410 in 2023 — and courts secured 353 convictions, up from 311 the previous year. Both figures represent genuine progress, and the upward conviction trajectory has been consistent for several years. Yet Scotland presents a troubling counterpoint: Scottish authorities referred just 21 cases to the Crown Office for prosecution in 2024, compared with 72 in 2023, and recorded no convictions for the second consecutive year. Northern Ireland’s picture improved — 24 investigations initiated, 4 prosecutions, and 3 convictions — but observers note that resource constraints continue to hamper the thoroughness of the response outside England and Wales. The US State Department’s 2025 TIP Report explicitly flagged that the UK “did not report sentencing data of convicted traffickers,” making it difficult to assess whether courts are consistently treating trafficking as the serious crime the law intends.
Exploitation Types and Victim Demographics in the UK 2026
EXPLOITATION TYPES — NRM REFERRALS 2025 (UK)
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Labour exploitation (all victims)
████████████████████████████████████████ 36% (8,406 referrals) ← Most common
Criminal exploitation (all victims)
████████████████████████████ 24%
Sexual exploitation (all victims)
███████████████████ 16%
Labour exploitation (adults only)
████████████████████████████████████████████ 45% (7,341)
Criminal exploitation (children only)
████████████████████████████████████████████████████ 50% (3,485)
Sexual exploitation (females only)
█████████████████████████████ 28% (1,679 female victims)
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| Exploitation / Demographic Metric | Data |
|---|---|
| Most common exploitation type — all victims (2025) | Labour exploitation exclusively — 36% (8,406) |
| Labour exploitation — adults only (2025) | 45% (7,341 adults) |
| Criminal exploitation — children only (2025) | 50% (3,485 children) |
| Sexual exploitation — females only (2025) | 28% (1,679 female victims) |
| Labour exploitation — males (2025) | 43% (7,376) |
| Criminal exploitation — males (2025) | 29% (4,952) |
| Labour exploitation referrals increase (2024→2025) | +37% year-on-year |
| County lines referrals flagged (2025) | 2,083 (9% of all referrals) |
| County lines — male child victims (2025) | 76% (1,585) of county lines referrals |
| UK national children — share of UK national referrals (2025) | 75% (3,841) of the 5,110 UK nationals |
| Eritrean victims — adults (2025) | 89% (2,730) were adults |
| Vietnamese victims — adults (2025) | 83% (1,663) were adults |
| Vietnamese victims — children (2025) | 17% (331) |
| Reasonable grounds positive decisions (adults, 2025) | 51% |
| Reasonable grounds positive decisions (children, 2025) | 84% |
| Conclusive grounds positive decisions (overall, 2025) | 66% |
| Conclusive grounds positive — adults (2025) | 60% |
| Conclusive grounds positive — children (2025) | 79% |
| Median time from referral to reasonable grounds decision (2025) | 6 days |
Source: UK Home Office — NRM and DtN End of Year Summary 2025, published 19 February 2026 (Official Statistics, Crown copyright)
The exploitation type breakdown in the 2025 NRM data reveals a picture that has shifted meaningfully from even three years ago. Labour exploitation now accounts for 36% of all referrals — the highest share ever recorded for this category — driven by a 37% year-on-year increase in labour exploitation referrals. This growth reflects both a genuine escalation in labour trafficking, particularly in industries like agriculture, construction, food processing, car washes, nail bars, and cannabis cultivation, and improved identification capacity among frontline workers and labour inspectors. The gendered nature of exploitation remains stark: among adult male victims, 43% were referred for labour exploitation; among female victims, 28% were referred for sexual exploitation. Criminal exploitation — which encompasses county lines drug trafficking, forced criminality, and theft rings — remains the dominant category for children, accounting for 50% of child referrals in 2025. The 2,083 county lines cases flagged in the same year, 76% of which involved male children, underscores that one of the most urgent child protection crises in England is simultaneously a human trafficking crisis.
The nationality data tells a critical story about both the domestic and international dimensions of UK trafficking. For the first time since 2011, Albanian nationals dropped out of the top three referred nationalities — falling 22% from 2024 — replaced in second place by Eritrean nationals, whose referrals surged 81% year-on-year to 3,083. This shift is explicitly linked to the dramatic increase in small boat crossings by Eritrean nationals and is a direct manifestation of the intersection between the refugee crisis and the trafficking crisis. UK nationals remain the most referred group at 22% (5,110), and the composition of this group is striking: 75% of UK nationals referred to the NRM in 2025 were children, most of them caught up in criminal exploitation through county lines. Britain is not merely a destination country for foreign trafficking — it is also a source country, producing its own victims from within its most vulnerable communities.
Trafficking Routes into and within the UK 2026
MOST COMMONLY EXPLOITED OVERSEAS LOCATIONS — UK NRM 2025
(Countries where exploitation was reported to have occurred)
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Libya ████████████████████████████████████████ 5,982 referrals ← #1
Sudan ████████████████ 1,365 referrals
Albania ████████ 917 referrals
Vietnam ████████ (regularly top source)
Nigeria ████████ (regularly top source)
UK EXPLOITATION HOTSPOTS (referrals reporting UK exploitation)
Greater London ██████████████████████████████████ 2,871
West Midlands █████████ 937
Greater Manchester ████████ 647
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| Route / Location Metric | Data |
|---|---|
| Referrals reporting exploitation exclusively overseas (2025) | 51% (11,998) — highest in NRM history |
| Referrals reporting exploitation exclusively in UK (2025) | 39% (9,081) |
| Most common overseas exploitation country (2025) | Libya — 5,982 referrals |
| Second most common overseas (2025) | Sudan — 1,365 referrals |
| Third most common overseas (2025) | Albania — 917 referrals |
| UK county — most exploitation reported (2025) | Greater London — 2,871 referrals |
| Second UK county (2025) | West Midlands — 937 referrals |
| Third UK county (2025) | Greater Manchester — 647 referrals |
| Referrals in England vs Scotland vs Wales vs NI (2025) | 90% England; 5% Scotland; 2% Wales; 3% NI |
| Known major trafficking routes into UK | Albanian, Nigerian, Moldavian, Russian-Ukrainian, Eastern Mediterranean, Vietnamese |
| Entry points for trafficking victims | Small airports, seaports, bus and coach terminals; increasingly small boats |
| Internal trafficking routes | Highway M1/M6/A1 corridors; county lines drug routes |
| Modern Slavery Fund (2016–2023) | £40 million — combating trafficking in Albania, Nigeria, Romania, Indonesia, Vietnam |
| Modern Slavery Fund allocation (2022–2025) | £24 million ($30.1 million) dedicated |
| Government 12-month action plan published | March 2025 |
| Most common entry method | Inexpensive airlines; small airports with less security; small boats across Channel |
Source: UK Home Office NRM End of Year Summary 2025; US State Department 2025 TIP Report: United Kingdom; UK House of Commons Home Affairs Committee — Human Trafficking Report 2024; Wikipedia — Human Trafficking in the United Kingdom (updated June 2026)
The routing data in the 2025 NRM statistics contains one of the most startling single figures in the entire dataset: Libya alone was identified as the country of overseas exploitation in 5,982 referrals — accounting for the vast majority of the record-high 11,998 referrals that reported exploitation occurring exclusively overseas. Sudan accounted for a further 1,365. Together, these two North African countries dominated the overseas exploitation picture in a way that has no precedent in NRM data, and the explanation is directly connected to the surge in Eritrean and Sudanese small boat arrivals crossing the Channel — individuals who in many cases experienced exploitation, trafficking, or forced labour at the hands of smuggling networks during their transit through Libya and Sudan before reaching the UK. The routes these individuals travel before arriving in Britain are, in many cases, trafficking routes in their own right: Libya in particular is well documented by the UN as a site of widespread slavery, torture, and sexual violence against migrants.
Within the UK, Greater London is the epicentre of domestic trafficking, with 2,871 referrals reporting exploitation within its borders — more than three times the next highest figure. The West Midlands (937) and Greater Manchester (647) reflect the concentration of trafficking operations in major urban centres, particularly in the hospitality, nail bar, car wash, agriculture, and cannabis sectors. The Highway 401-equivalent routes in the UK context are the M1, M6, and A1 motorway corridors, which county lines criminal networks use to distribute drugs — and with them, trafficked young people pressed into service as couriers — from city hubs outward into smaller towns. The Home Affairs Committee’s 2024 report on human trafficking was unequivocal: criminal exploitation is the most reported form of trafficking in the UK, and law enforcement has insufficient training to recognise its victims, many of whom are seen first as criminals rather than people in need of protection.
Child Trafficking and County Lines in the UK 2026
CHILD TRAFFICKING — KEY DATA (UK 2025)
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Child referrals 2025 7,028
Share of all NRM referrals 30%
Children referred for criminal exploitation 50% (3,485)
County lines referrals flagged 2025 2,083
County lines — male child victims 76% (1,585)
UK national children as share of UK national referrals 75% (3,841)
Positive reasonable grounds decisions for children 84%
Positive conclusive grounds decisions for children 79%
YEAR-ON-YEAR TREND (child referrals)
2023 ████████████████████████████████ 6,000+
2024 ████████████████████████████████████ ~7,500 (32% of referrals)
2025 ████████████████████████████████ 7,028 (30% of referrals)
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| Child Trafficking Metric | Data |
|---|---|
| Child NRM referrals 2025 | 7,028 (30% of all referrals) |
| Child referrals reaching highest ever number | Yes — both male and female child referrals at record highs |
| Most common exploitation for children | Criminal exploitation — 50% (3,485 children) |
| County lines referrals 2025 | 2,083 (9% of all NRM referrals) |
| County lines — male child share | 76% (1,585) |
| County lines as share of 2024 referrals | 10% (down slightly to 9% in 2025) |
| UK national children in NRM (2025) | 3,841 — 75% of all UK national referrals |
| Child positive reasonable grounds decisions | 84% (vs 51% for adults) |
| Child positive conclusive grounds decisions | 79% (vs 60% for adults) |
| Local authority referrals (2025) | 4,795 (20% of all referrals) — record high |
| Local authority referrals — primary for children | Yes — most LA referrals are for children |
| Devolved pilot for child decision-making | Extended to 7 additional sites in 2025 — active from November 2025 |
| Definition of county lines | Drug gangs from large cities expanding to small towns using trafficked individuals and mobile lines |
| Minimum age considered for county lines exploitation | No minimum — children as young as 12 documented |
| HMPPS — First Responder Organisation status | Not a designated FRO — creates identification gap in prisons |
Source: UK Home Office NRM End of Year Summary 2025; US State Department 2025 TIP Report: United Kingdom; UK House of Commons Home Affairs Committee — Human Trafficking Report 2024; NCA Modern Slavery Human Trafficking Unit
County lines — the system by which organised criminal gangs in cities dispatch young people, often children, to carry drugs to market towns and rural areas — has become one of the most defining and disturbing features of human trafficking in the UK. The 2,083 county lines referrals in 2025 represent 9% of all NRM referrals, and the 76% male child proportion among them illustrates the particular vulnerability of boys, especially those in care or with unstable home situations, to recruitment by these networks. What makes county lines both a trafficking issue and a child protection crisis is the recruitment mechanism: traffickers target children at moments of extreme vulnerability — exclusion from school, bereavement, financial pressure, or care placement breakdown — and offer what appear to be belonging, money, and protection. The reality is debt bondage, violence, and coerced criminality. Many of these children are arrested, charged, and prosecuted for drug offences before anyone recognises that they are trafficking victims, not perpetrators.
The positive decision rate for children at the reasonable grounds stage — 84%, compared to just 51% for adults — reflects the legal and ethical framework that surrounds child victims: under UK law, children do not need to consent to NRM referral, cannot be disqualified from the NRM on public order grounds, and are presumed vulnerable. The devolved decision-making pilot for child victims, which expanded to 7 additional local authority sites in 2025 and began operating from November 2025, is designed to place child trafficking decisions closer to the children’s social care professionals who know individual cases best, rather than routing all decisions through a central Home Office authority. The expansion of local authority referrals to 4,795 in 2025 — a record — suggests this community-level identification is working, but the persistent gap identified by the US TIP Report — that HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) is not a designated First Responder Organisation — means that children and adults already in the criminal justice system remain largely invisible to the NRM.
Law Enforcement, Prosecution and Support for Victims in the UK 2026
UK TRAFFICKING LAW ENFORCEMENT OUTCOMES — 2024 (Latest Available)
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Active investigations (Dec 2024) ██████████████████ 2,738
New investigations initiated (2024) █████████████████ 2,453
CPS prosecutions (2024) ████████████ 454 defendants
Convictions secured (2024) █████████ 353 traffickers
Scotland — cases referred for prosecution (2024) ██ 21
Scotland — convictions (2024) (zero — 2nd consecutive year)
Northern Ireland — investigations (2024) █████ 24
Northern Ireland — convictions (2024) ██ 3
Cases awaiting conclusive grounds decision (end 2025): 5,758 (down 80% from peak)
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| Law Enforcement & Support Metric | Data |
|---|---|
| Active trafficking investigations (December 2024) | 2,738 |
| New investigations initiated in 2024 | 2,453 (vs 2,269 in 2023) |
| CPS prosecutions — 2024 | 454 defendants (up from 410 in 2023) |
| Convictions — 2024 | 353 traffickers (up from 311 in 2023) |
| Scotland — prosecution referrals (2024) | 21 cases (down from 72 in 2023) |
| Scotland — convictions (2024) | Zero — second consecutive year |
| Northern Ireland — investigations (2024) | 24 (down from 129 in 2023) |
| Northern Ireland — convictions (2024) | 3 (up from 1 in 2023) |
| Maximum penalty — Modern Slavery Act 2015 | Life imprisonment |
| Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract (MSVCC) support | Post-positive reasonable grounds: accommodation, financial support, support worker |
| Post-positive conclusive grounds — minimum further support | 45 additional days |
| Post-negative conclusive grounds — move-on support | 9 days |
| Cases awaiting conclusive grounds decision (end 2025) | 5,758 — down 66% from 2024 (17,168) and 80% from peak |
| Median age of cases awaiting conclusive grounds (end 2025) | 76 days — down from 120 days (end 2024) and 627 days (end 2023) |
| Disqualifications confirmed (2025) | 224 (97% on public order grounds) |
| Disqualification requests (2025) | 297 |
| Public order disqualification decisions paused from | 23 December 2025 — until further notice |
| Home Office funding for MSOIC Unit | £610,000 ($772,400) — Modern Slavery and Organised Immigration Crime |
| UK government anti-trafficking global fund (2022–2025) | £24 million via Modern Slavery Fund |
Source: UK Home Office NRM End of Year Summary 2025; US State Department 2025 TIP Report: United Kingdom; Crown Prosecution Service CPS Data Summary 2024
The progress on clearing the conclusive grounds decision backlog is one of the most positive developments in the UK’s modern slavery system in recent years. The reduction from 29,275 cases awaiting a decision at the peak in October 2022 to just 5,758 by end of 2025 — an 80% reduction — represents an enormous administrative and staffing effort by the Home Office. The median waiting time for cases awaiting a conclusive grounds decision fell from 627 days at the end of 2023 to 120 days at the end of 2024 to just 76 days at the end of 2025, a transformation that has real consequences for real people: victims who previously waited nearly two years in a state of legal limbo are now receiving decisions within approximately two and a half months of their positive reasonable grounds stage. The government has pledged to eradicate the backlog entirely by December 2026, a commitment that will be closely monitored by NGOs and parliamentary oversight bodies.
The CPS conviction figure of 353 in 2024 is meaningful and positive, but it needs to be set against the backdrop of an estimated 130,000 people in modern slavery in the UK. Even accounting for the fact that many trafficking situations involve the same perpetrators exploiting multiple victims simultaneously, the gap between the scale of the crime and the volume of criminal justice outcomes remains vast. The support entitlement framework — with its 45-day minimum post-conclusive grounds support and 9-day move-on period for those with negative decisions — has been criticised by the anti-trafficking sector as inadequate to enable genuine recovery and reintegration, particularly for victims who have experienced years of exploitation and have no independent housing, income, or legal status in the UK. The 12-month action plan published by the Home Office in March 2025 acknowledged these gaps and committed to developing a replacement for the lapsed 2014 Modern Slavery Strategy — a commitment whose fulfilment will be the defining measure of the UK’s anti-trafficking credibility in 2026 and beyond.
Disclaimer: The data research report we present here is based on information found from various sources. We are not liable for any financial loss, errors, or damages of any kind that may result from the use of the information herein. We acknowledge that though we try to report accurately, we cannot verify the absolute facts of everything that has been represented.
