UK Modern Slavery Referrals Hit Record 23,000 in 2025, Up 22%

Rising living costs and new technology have driven record levels of exploitation in the UK, the independent anti-slavery commissioner warned.

The monitoring group received referrals for more than 23,000 potential modern slavery victims in 2025, a 22 percent increase from the previous year and the highest total on record.

A report released Monday cautioned that people trafficking, forced labor and sexual exploitation will grow harder to detect without urgent steps against criminal networks.

More than one-fifth of the potential victims in 2025 came from the UK, forming the largest single group.

The report arrives more than 10 years after the Modern Slavery Act took effect. It compiles evidence from over 50 organizations to examine how exploitation might develop.

Global conflicts and displacement have eased exploitation of vulnerable people by traffickers, the report stated. Artificial intelligence and digital platforms now let traffickers recruit, groom and control victims on a large scale.

Eleanor Lyons, appointed independent anti-slavery commissioner in October 2023, said the report showed how exploitation increasingly affects people inside the UK.

"The most harrowing forms of exploitation are becoming more widespread in this country and evolving faster than we can respond," she said. "It will spread further and become harder to stop unless we act now."

Lyons said the UK's response fails to match the threat's scale and complexity. She urged the government to fund specialist police units and impose fines on businesses that violate anti-exploitation rules.

"Behind these numbers are real people being abused in ways most of us would struggle to imagine, whether it's women forced into the sex trade, children coerced into drug gangs, or workers trapped in brutal conditions with no way out, often living in absolute fear," Lyons added.

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 consolidated existing anti-exploitation offenses into one law. It also established new duties and powers to protect victims and prosecute offenders.