From 22 July 2025, a number of key changes to the UK visa and sponsorship rules take effect.
The following is an overview of these amendments, which go live from today. For advice on how these changes impact your organisation, contact our UK immigration specialist advisers.
Skilled Worker Visa: higher skill bar
From 22 July 2025, a job must normally be graded at Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) level 6 (roughly graduate level) to be sponsored under the Skilled Worker route. Over one hundred roles, (according to the Home Office, although industry analyses suggest around 180), mid-skill occupations that used to qualify at RQF 3–5 consequently no longer qualify, unless they appear on either the Immigration Salary List or Temporary Shortage List (see below).
Appendix Skilled Occupations has also been restructured to separate eligible roles by skill level, with distinct tables now provided for occupations at RQF Level 6 and above, and for those at RQF Levels 3 to 5.
Employers should carefully review where a specific job appears within the revised structure, as the presence of a role in the appendix does not automatically mean it qualifies for sponsorship. Role eligibility has to be assessed based on both skill level and other route-specific criteria.
Skilled Worker Visa: higher salary thresholds
Skilled worker salary tables have been uprated using 2024 ASHE data. The headline or “standard option A” threshold has increased from £38,700 to £41,700 a year, and every occupation-specific going rate has been refreshed. In addition to meeting the relevant annual threshold, sponsors must pay at least £17.13 per hour, counting no more than 48 paid hours a week when annualising salary.
| Option | Applicable to | Minimum salary requirement from 22 July 2025 | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | Standard Skilled Worker (no discounts) | £41,700 *and* 100 % of the standard going rate. Hourly pay must also reach £17.13 (max 48 hrs/wk). |
20 |
| B | Relevant PhD (non‑STEM) | £37,500 *and* 90 % of the standard going rate. Hourly floor £17.13 applies. |
20 |
| C | STEM PhD | £33,400 *and* 80 % of the standard going rate. Hourly floor £17.13 applies. |
20 |
| D | Job on the Immigration Salary List (ISL) | £33,400 *and* 100 % of the standard going rate. No other discounts can be combined. |
20 |
| E | New entrant (early‑career) | £33,400 *and* 70 % of the standard going rate. Hourly floor £17.13 applies. |
20 |
| F | Health & Care ASHE job or continuing employment – standard rate | £31,300 *and* 100 % of the lower going rate. No £17.13 hourly floor. |
20 |
| G | Health & Care ASHE job or continuing employment – relevant PhD (non‑STEM) | £28,200 *and* 90 % of the lower going rate. | 20 |
| H | Health & Care ASHE job or continuing employment – STEM PhD | £25,000 *and* 80 % of the lower going rate. | 20 |
| I | Health & Care ASHE job or continuing employment – ISL role | £25,000 *and* 100 % of the lower going rate. No extra discounts allowed. |
20 |
| J | Health & Care ASHE job or continuing employment – new entrant | £25,000 *and* 70 % of the lower going rate. | 20 |
| K | Listed health or education occupation (continuous sponsorship since before 22 Jul 2025) | £25,000 *and* 100 % of the going‑rate or the relevant national pay‑scale rate. | 20 |
Under limited transitional provisions, workers first sponsored before 4 April 2024 may still rely on Options F–J, which keep a lower general floor of £31,300 until 4 April 2030. Options F–J continue to require 100 / 90 / 80 / 70 % of the new going rate, as shown in the Rules.
New Temporary Shortage & Immigration Salary lists
Two interim lists are now effective, keeping a small number of sub‑graduate jobs open until the end of 2026: an expanded Immigration Salary List (ISL) and a time-limited Temporary Shortage List (TSL). From 22 July 2025, a role below RQF 6 can now be sponsored only if it appears on one of these lists. Both lists are scheduled to expire at the end of 2026, or sooner if the Home Office decides, and newly-sponsored workers under the TSL and ISL roles at RQF 3-5 cannot bring dependants.
The ISL is effectively an expanded successor to the old Shortage Occupation List. It contains jobs that the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has confirmed are in genuine national shortage, such as laboratory technicians, bricklayers and skilled dancers. Sponsorship is allowed at RQF 3‑5 and on a reduced salary benchmark, because the Rules treat every ISL role as benefiting from “a reduced skills and salary threshold”. However, each entry shows a firm removal date of 31 December 2026. If a Certificate of Sponsorship is issued after the removal date, the concession is lost.
The time‑limited TSL is a one‑off political carve‑out. The featured occupations, including IT support technicians, data analysts and logistics managers, were chosen by HM Treasury and the Department for Business to support the government’s Modern Industrial Strategy. A CoS must be assigned by 31 December 2026. After this deadline, the roles may either become eligible under RQF 6 or drop off entirely from eligibility.
Note that care workers and senior care workers (SOC 6135 and 6136) do appear on the Immigration Salary List with a removal date of 22 July 2028, but entry clearance sponsorship in those codes closes on 22 July 2025.
Dependants curbed for lower-skilled roles
Applicants newly sponsored on or after 22 July 2025 in any RQF 3‑5 job on the ISL or TSL cannot bring dependants. Family members who already hold leave are unaffected. Roles at RQF 6 or above are unaffected, provided they meet the normal family-route maintenance rules.
Care worker route closes to new overseas recruits
Entry clearance applications for care workers and senior care workers (occupation codes 6135 and 6136) are closed from 22 July 2025. In-country “switchers” can still be sponsored until 22 July 2028, provided they have been on the sponsor’s UK payroll for at least three months before the CoS is issued. The in‑country switch concession ends on 22 July 2028.
GBM & Scale Up Visas: higher salary thresholds
Under the Global Business Mobility umbrella, from 22 July 2025 a Senior or Specialist Worker or UK Expansion Worker must earn at least £52,500 a year, up from £48,500, while the Scale-up visa threshold rises from £36,300 to £39,100.
For the Graduate Trainee strand, the floor climbs to £27,300, replacing the previous £25,410 and triggering matched uplifts to the “70 per cent of going‑rate” tables and worked examples.
GBM categories still apply the long‑standing rule that only the first 48 paid hours a week count towards the annualised salary.
The rebuilt Appendix Skilled Occupations now lists only roles assessed at RQF level 6 or above as automatically eligible for GBM. Sub‑graduate codes, including medical and dental technicians, teaching assistants and all NHS Agenda‑for‑Change Bands 1‑4, are removed and therefore cannot be used for new GBM or Scale‑up sponsorship.
However, a new Table 2b offers transitional cover for 15 occupation codes that have just been downgraded below RQF 6 (for example logistics managers, CAD technicians and database administrators). Employers may continue to sponsor only those workers who already held GBM leave before 4 April 2024, and only until 4 April 2030; fresh recruits in these codes are now barred.
Need assistance?
Under the new rules, strategic workforce planning, including role design, salary structuring and talent pipeline development, will now be critical to maintaining access to global talent.
Given the scale and immediacy of the changes taking effect, contact our advisers to understand how the new rules impact your organisation’s ability to sponsor overseas workers, particularly in roles below RQF Level 6 or when applying the revised salary thresholds.
Author
Founder and Managing Director Anne Morris is a fully qualified solicitor and trusted adviser to large corporates through to SMEs, providing strategic immigration and global mobility advice to support employers with UK operations to meet their workforce needs through corporate immigration.
She is a recognised by Legal 500 and Chambers as a legal expert and delivers Board-level advice on business migration and compliance risk management as well as overseeing the firm’s development of new client propositions and delivery of cost and time efficient processing of applications.
Anne is an active public speaker, immigration commentator, and immigration policy contributor and regularly hosts training sessions for employers and HR professionals
