Before the referendum, and for a considerable time afterwards, EU citizens had an unrestricted, unlimited right to live and work in the UK under freedom of movement rules. Given that controversy over the number of EU migrants, especially from accession state countries, had played a large part in the campaigning around the Brexit vote, it was apparent after the referendum that the mandate to “take back control” was likely to result ultimately in the ending of freedom of movement. 

At the date of the referendum in June 2016, official figures suggest there were 2.24 million people working in the UK construction industry – very close to the level today. This was 200,000 above the trough in the labour force seen in 2008-10 in the wake of the global financial crisis, and more than 100,000 below the peak in employment seen in 2019, shortly before the onset of the covid pandemic. 

In the years leading up to the referendum, the construction industry had rapidly expanded its use of overseas workers in response to perceived skills shortages and an apparently keen pool of available workers from new EU member states that had formerly been part of the Eastern Bloc, many of which joined in 2004.