Dr Madeleine Sumption
About
Dr Madeleine Sumption is the Director of the Migration Observatory. She is a policy specialist focusing on the impacts of migration policies and the role of migrants in the labour market.
Research interests include the design of immigration policies and their economic and social impacts, labour migration, and the interaction between the economics and politics of migration policies. Recent areas of focus include government policies towards immigrant investors, the impacts of Brexit on the UK’s immigration system, and the implementation of the EU Settlement Scheme.
Dr Sumption is a member of the Migration Advisory Committee, an independent panel that advises the UK Government on migration issues. From 2017 to 2022, she was Chair of Migration Statistics User Forum, which brings together producers and users of migration data.
Before joining Oxford, Dr Sumption was Director of Research for the international program at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) in Washington, DC. She remains a Non-resident Fellow with Migration Policy Institute Europe. Dr Sumption holds a PhD in Public Policy from the University of Maastricht. In 2017, she received an MBE for services to social science.
Expertise
- Migration policy
- Immigration statistics
- Labour migration and work visas
- Investment migration (citizenship and residence by investment)
Selected publications
- UK policies to deter people from claiming asylum (2024)
- Net migration to the UK (2024)
- “The Points System is Dead. Long Live the Points System!” Why Immigration Policymakers in the UK Are Never Quite Happy with Their Points Systems (2023)
- Shortages, high-demand occupations, and the post-Brexit UK immigration system (2022)
- Is Employer Sponsorship a Good Way to Manage Labour Migration? Implications for Post-Brexit Migration Policies (2019)
- How useful are survey data for analyzing immigration policy? (2020)
Media experience
Dr Madeleine Sumption has extensive media experience including regular appearances in broadcast media (e.g. BBC Radio 4, Radio 5 Live, News at 6/10, Panorama, Channel 4 News, Sky News), and frequently gives briefings to print journalists (Telegraph, The Guardian, Financial Times, etc).
Recent media work
- How do the Office for National Statistics work out how much the UK population is going to grow by? (BBC Radio 4, 2024)
- The Briefing Room: Can you reduce immigration and run the economy? (BBC Radio 4, 2023)
- It’s unsustainable to prop up social care with workers on visas, say NHS Trusts (Independent, 2023)
- Red wall Tory MPs put pressure on Sunak over net migration (The Guardian, 2023)
Languages
English