Lancaster experts have worked alongside the UK Government to investigate how to detect and prevent exploitative labour practices.
A team led by Professor Jan Bebbington, Director of the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business at Lancaster University, has worked with the Department for Business and Trade and the newly-launched Fair Work Agency on a report which provides guidance for understanding and identifying approaches for tackling labour exploitation.
The research deepens understanding of what drives exploitation, enhances protection and detection mechanisms, anticipates emerging threats, and identifies opportunities for positive change.
Professor Bebbington, who led the research, said: “Clearly, employment should be fair and free from exploitation, equally it is clear that this is not yet universally the case.
“Central to the recommendations in the report is the need to take a systemic view of how exploitation arises, and conversely how decent work can be enabled. This means that no single actor has the ability or leverage to address exploitation.
“As a result, the work sought to identify from literature and research participants the way in which a combination of Government enforcement action, employer good practice, employee representative bodies action, NGOs and society more broadly can create the conditions decent work”.
The report, entitled “Decent Work: A Review of Evidence for Effective Prevention and Detection of Labour Exploitation” sets out practical recommendations for government, enforcement bodies, businesses and society. It explains the main factors that create or increase risks of labour exploitation, and summarises what works in preventing and detecting exploitation across high-risk sectors, which are identified as areas such as construction, social care, and the gig economy.
Recommendations include:

• To enhance coordinated and multi-agency working and embed solutions thinking.
• To deepen stakeholder engagement to expand worker voice, reporting routes and access to support, and to frame and build shared understanding of the problem.
• To engage employers and investors in supporting decent and fair work.
• To improve understanding of the impact of new technologies on decent and fair work and where these can be used in tackling labour exploitation.
• To strengthen the Fair Work Agency’s analytical, data and intelligence capability to build a clearer, evidence-based understanding of employer behaviour and non-compliance, and strengthen the evidence base through targeted, prioritised research.

The research was led by Professor Jan Bebbington, alongside Dr Ophelia Chidgey from Lancaster University Management School and LU Partnership Development Manager Stephen King.
The five-month project was jointly funded by the ODLME (Office of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement), which has now been incorporated into the Fair Work Agency (FWA), and the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business. The FWA was formed in April 2026 and is responsible for enforcing workers’ rights. It combines the powers of the former Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, National Minimum Wage enforcement team and Office of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement.