[Image: Sharpshot via Adobe Stock (edited)]

The Decent Work project was a collaborative initiative between the Office of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement (ODLME) and Lancaster University’s Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business. It responds to the urgent imperative across the United Kingdom to secure decent work: employment that is fair, secure and free from exploitation. Despite policy advances and enforcement efforts, forced and exploitative labour continues to undermine labour standards and individual rights across multiple sectors. The drivers of exploitation are complex, multifaceted and interconnected; rooted in structural economic pressures, restrictive state policies, and heightened or compounded vulnerabilities among worker groups.

Against this backdrop, the project sought to build a robust and practically relevant evidence base on the effective prevention of labour exploitation. It also aims to cultivate a well‑informed, cross‑sectoral coalition capable of shaping fairer labour practices and contributing to a coherent, forward‑looking strategy for the UK’s evolving Fair Work Agency (FWA). Central to this ambition is strengthening the UK’s ability to detect and prevent exploitative labour by deepening understanding of exploitation drivers, enhancing protection and detection mechanisms, and anticipating emerging threats, risks and opportunities for positive change. The project’s objectives are threefold:

1. To establish an evidence base capturing current knowledge on the drivers, mechanisms and prevention of labour exploitation across high‑risk sectors.
2. To build and mobilise a cross‑sectoral community of practice, spanning government, academia, NGOs Business Representative Organisations (BROs) and Enforcement Bodies (EBs) that can generate shared insights and inform fairer labour policymaking.
3. To build on the UK Labour Market Enforcement Strategy 2025-26 with actionable recommendations which contribute to a forward-looking Fair Work Agency (FWA) strategy that strengthens the UK’s ability to detect and prevent exploitative labour practices.