This report examines the living and working conditions of irregularised migrants across five European countries (Austria, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the UK) and four sectors of work (agriculture and food processing, restaurants, elder care, and waste management). Drawing on over 200 semi-structured interviews conducted between 2024 and 2025, the study utilises a three-dimensional comparative framework to analyse the impact of work sectors, legal status, and national institutional contexts on the lives of irregularised migrants. While there is a wealth of research on specific sectors of work, individual country contexts, and legal statuses, our contribution is in analysing these dynamics in comparative perspective. The findings reveal a striking convergence in the lived realities of workers despite differing national labour, welfare and migration regimes. Across all sectors, migrant workers face a continuum of exploitation, characterized by wage theft, excessive hours, and hazardous environments without adequate safety training. A reliance on intermediaries, ranging from temporary work agencies to informal brokers, often renders the actual employer an invisible figure and facilitates scams that lead to further irregularisation. Sector-specific insights include: (i) the prevalence of intense physical demands and employer-controlled housing or informal camps in agriculture/food processing, used as a tool for coercion; (ii) the restaurant sector serving as an entry point, including for overqualified students and asylum seekers working back-of-house roles in breach of visa limits; (iii) the high incidence of isolation and physical and/or sexual harassment in the elder care sector, particularly in live-in arrangements where residency is tied to the employer, as well as racism and heavy workload in institutional care homes; (iv) despite waste management being a highly regulated sector overall, there is still significant ad-hoc, hidden work undertaken by irregularised migrants, particularly at night or in isolated settings. The report highlights that irregularity is a condition imposed by restrictive policies to inform migration governance across national settings, in which (illicit) intermediaries serve a fundamental role. While migrant workers across legal statuses express a desire to strengthen their status, there is a pervasive
