MigrationWatchdog

Asylum accommodation in Sandwell

England · West Midlands — asylum support snapshot, as at 30 Jun 2026.

1,467 asylum seekers were in receipt of Home Office asylum support in Sandwell as at 30 Jun 2026, including 115 in contingency hotels.

1,467
asylum seekers supported
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source
1,318
in dispersal accommodation
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source
115
in contingency accommodation
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source
115
of which in hotels
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source
34
other or unclassified support
as at 30 Jun 2026 · source

Sandwell ranks #7 of 346 UK local authorities with supported asylum seekers, carrying 1.8% of England's supported caseload — 41.6 per 10,000 residents (against the mid-2025 population estimate of 352,918). West Midlands overview → · Compare all authorities →

The last 12 quarters

1.7k030 Sep 202330 Jun 202630 Sep 2023 — 1,55431 Dec 2023 — 1,43731 Mar 2024 — 1,55530 Jun 2024 — 1,41630 Sep 2024 — 1,63131 Dec 2024 — 1,64631 Mar 2025 — 1,67830 Jun 2025 — 1,67130 Sep 2025 — 1,67931 Dec 2025 — 1,59531 Mar 2026 — 1,50030 Jun 2026 — 1,467
People in receipt of Home Office asylum support in Sandwell, quarterly snapshots. Asylum seekers in receipt of Home Office support by local authority, year ending June 2026 (Home Office, Immigration system statistics).

Broadly flat since 30 Sep 2023 (-6%).

Where this sits in the record

Everything here comes from the same published accommodation table as the figures above, across the 12 quarters it covers — so it is available for every authority in all four nations, and no figure is combined with one from a different collection.

Highest and lowest recorded

The highest quarter recorded here is 1,679 (30 Sep 2025) and the lowest 1,416 (30 Jun 2024). The latest is 1,467. The series starts at 30 Sep 2023, so an earlier or later extreme would not appear in it.

Rank, then and now

Sandwell ranked #18 of 315 authorities with a recorded caseload in 30 Sep 2023, and #7 of 346 now. It has moved up 11 places.

Its own caseload changed by -87 over the same period, against -28,383 across England — 0.3% of that national movement.

Accommodation mix, against England

Accommodation type in Sandwell as a share of its supported population, against England
Accommodation typePeople hereShare hereShare in England
Dispersal accommodation1,31889.8%72.2%
Contingency accommodation1157.8%20.1%
— of which hotels1157.8%18.5%
Initial accommodation—0%1.6%
Other or unclassified342.3%6.1%

Hotels are a subset of contingency accommodation, so the shares do not sum to 100%. Both columns come from the same snapshot of the same table.

Census context (2021)

341,833
usual residents
Census day, 21 March 2021 · source
23.6%
born outside the UK (80,620)
Census day, 21 March 2021 · source
5%
cannot speak English well or at all (16,393)
Census day, 21 March 2021 · source

The legal route, locally

Alongside asylum dispersal, Sandwell has received 6 people through formal resettlement schemes since 2014 (none in the last four published quarters).

four quarters to 2026 Q2, and cumulative since 2014 · source

Language in schools

21,665 pupils in Sandwell's state-funded schools have a first language known or believed to be other than English — 34.6% of the 62,660 pupils recorded across the three published language categories (2025/26).

A pupil's first language is not immigration status, and this is not a count of migrant children — most pupils with another first language are British citizens. State-funded schools only.

academic year 2025/26 · source

When asylum accommodation ends

32 households were owed a homelessness relief duty in Sandwell after being required to leave Home Office asylum accommodation (January to March 2026) — of 165 households owed that duty for any reason. A further 3 were owed a prevention duty for the same reason.

Households, not people. Prevention (threatened with homelessness) and relief (already homeless) are different duties and are never added together here — a household can move from one to the other.

January to March 2026 · source

Ranked nearby

Support counts are a point-in-time snapshot by registered address; contingency sites open and close between quarters. Census figures are from March 2021 and predate arrivals since. Numbers say where the asylum system places people — they say nothing about any individual.

Data as of

Cite this page

Asylum accommodation in Sandwell. Migration Watchdog, data as of 2026-09-02.
https://migrationwatchdog.com/local/sandwell
Underlying figures: UK official statistics, re-published under OGL v3.0 — every figure links to its source on the page.

Sources for this page