Skilled Worker Sponsorship After July 2025: What the £41,700 Threshold and the New Degree-Level Rule Mean for Your Hiring
27 May 2026
If you are an HR director trying to scale a team right now, you are not just battling a talent shortage you are battling a budget deficit. Discovering that a preferred candidate now needs an unexpected salary bump simply to clear immigration is a boardroom headache nobody wants. That is the reality the 22 July 2025 Skilled Worker changes created, and it is biting hardest now, during mid-year hiring cycles and visa renewals.
These were not a routine annual uplift they reshaped who you can actually sponsor. Two changes matter most: the general salary floor jumped to £41,700, and the minimum skill level rose from RQF Level 3 to RQF Level 6 (degree level), removing around 180 occupations from eligibility overnight.
This post explains what changed, who it affects, the "going rate" trap that catches employers out, and the practical steps to take before your next hire.
The headline changes
| Element | Before 22 July 2025 | From 22 July 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| General salary threshold | £38,700 | £41,700 |
| "New entrant" threshold | £30,960 | £33,400 |
| Minimum skill level | RQF Level 3 (A-level equivalent) | RQF Level 6 (degree) |
| Eligible occupations | Wider list | ~180 roles removed |
| Social care recruitment from overseas | Permitted | Closed to new overseas applicants |
A quick translation of the jargon: RQF is the Regulated Qualifications Framework, the system that ranks how skilled a job is. Level 3 is roughly A-level standard; Level 6 is bachelor's-degree standard. Raising the bar to Level 6 means many supervisory, technical and administrative roles that qualified in 2024 no longer do.
Important: Salary thresholds and going rates are reviewed regularly and vary by occupation code. The figures above reflect the position from 22 July 2025. Always check the current Immigration Rules (Appendix Skilled Worker) and the relevant occupation's going rate before relying on a number for a live application.
The £41,700 "going rate" trap: why hitting the threshold isn't enough
This is the single most common and most expensive misunderstanding. Many employers assume that if they pay the £41,700 general threshold, they are safe. They are not. Every Skilled Worker role must satisfy two salary tests, and you must pay whichever is higher: the general (or new entrant) threshold, and the published "going rate" for that specific occupation code.
For many genuinely degree-level (RQF 6) roles, the going rate sits well above £41,700. IT project managers, engineers, business analysts and similar professional roles frequently carry going rates that make the real salary floor considerably higher than the headline figure. If you budget to £41,700 and the going rate for the role is, say, £48,000, your application fails or you pay the difference. This is the "Appendix Skilled Worker going rates 2026" question every HR team should be asking before extending an offer, not after.
Which industries are most affected by the RQF Level 6 rule?
Sectors that leaned on mid-skilled roles. Hospitality, retail and operations management, logistics, care, and parts of construction sector that relied heavily on roles now sitting below RQF 6. If your hiring model assumed you could sponsor a role at A-level skill, that assumption needs rebuilding.
To make this concrete, popular mid-tier roles that employers used to sponsor routinely have been stripped of eligibility because they do not meet the degree-level criteria among them restaurant and hotel managers, property managers, chefs and many skilled trades (electricians, plumbers, carpenters), HR officers, estate agents and data analysts. A handful of below-degree roles remain eligible only where they appear on the Immigration Salary List or the interim Temporary Shortage List, so the exceptions are narrow and time-limited.
Social care employers. Overseas recruitment of care workers and home carers closed entirely to new applicants from 22 July 2025. Existing sponsored workers and in-country switching are treated differently, but the overseas pipeline you may have depended on is gone.
Anyone budgeting on the old salary. A role you costed at £38,700 last year now needs £41,700 to clear the general threshold before you factor in the going rate for that specific occupation, which may be higher still.
A tale of two applications
In early 2025, you could have sponsored an Operations Supervisor at £39,000 under RQF Level 3. Today that same role is likely entirely ineligible because it falls below the RQF 6 degree-level requirement. If you redraft the job description up to a genuine senior-management level to reach RQF 6, you must then be prepared to pay at least the £41,700 floor or the higher going rate for that management tier, whichever is greater. The role didn't just get more expensive; it may have left the sponsorship system altogether.
The "new entrant" salary discount: your cost-saving lifeline
There is a genuine way to reduce the salary burden. The new entrant rate (from £33,400, rather than £41,700) is available to younger and early-career applicants and it is the lifeline employers most often overlook.
You can generally use the new entrant rate where the worker is under 26 at the date of application, or is a recent graduate whose most recent permission was a Student visa and who completed a qualifying UK qualification (such as a UK bachelor's, master's or PhD, or a PGCE/PGDE), among a few other categories like postdoctoral researchers and those working towards professional registration. Two catches matter: the new entrant rate still requires at least 70% of the going rate for the role, and a worker can only be treated as a new entrant for a maximum of four years (counting time on the Graduate, Tier 2 and Skilled Worker routes) before the full rate kicks in. Used well, it makes an otherwise unaffordable hire like a recent UK graduate moving into a junior professional role viable.
The transitional protection you should not assume you have
Workers already sponsored in roles that have since dropped below RQF 6 may benefit from transitional arrangements, allowing continued sponsorship and extensions in those roles for a defined period. This is one of the most misunderstood areas. Do not assume a worker is protected, and do not assume protection transfers if they change roles or employers. The detail is fact-sensitive and time-limited.
Your sponsor licence compliance checklist
Audit your current sponsored workforce. Map every sponsored role against the post-July 2025 occupation list and skill level. Flag anyone in a role that has dropped below RQF 6.
Re-cost your hiring plans. Update salary budgets to the £41,700 general floor and, crucially, check the going rate for each occupation code whichever is higher applies. Use the new entrant rate wherever the worker qualifies.
Check the Immigration Skills Charge. The charge increased in December 2025. It is a per-worker, per-year cost you pay as the sponsor factor it into the true cost of a hire. (See our guide to the [December 2025 Immigration Skills Charge changes].)
Review your settlement assumptions. The proposed "earned settlement" 10-year model is still at consultation stage and not yet law, but it will affect your workers' long-term plans. Don't let your retention messaging get ahead of what's actually in force.
Protect your licence. Tighter rules mean tighter Home Office scrutiny. Make sure your right-to-work checks, record-keeping and reporting duties are watertight before an audit.
Common questions from employers
Generally, not for new overseas hires, unless a specific exception or transitional provision applies. This is exactly the kind of point worth checking before you advertise.
At extension or change of employment, current requirements generally apply. A worker compliant in 2024 is not automatically compliant on their next application.
Often yes, but the maths has changed. The combination of higher salaries, the increased skills charge and the narrower role list means sponsorship now need a deliberate cost-benefit decision rather than a default one.
The strategic takeawayThe strategic takeaway
The July 2025 changes were designed to reduce net migration by pricing and skilling employers out of lower-paid sponsorship. If your workforce strategy still assumes the pre-2025 rules, you are exposed on two fronts: roles you can no longer fill, and a sponsor licence under heavier compliance pressure. The employers who come out ahead are the ones auditing now not the ones who discover the gap when an application is refused.
If you need to justify these costs to a CFO who cares only about the bottom line, give them the narrative in one line: international recruitment is no longer a plug-and-play fix for mid-level vacancies it is now a premium tier reserved for business-critical, genuinely degree-level roles, and it needs to be budgeted as such.
Need a sponsorship audit? V Immigration helps UK employers map their workforce against the current rules, protect their sponsor licence, and plan hires that will actually be approved. [Book a consultation] to review your position before your next recruitment round.
This article is for general information and reflects our understanding of the rules as at 30 May 2026. It is not legal advice and should not be relied on for any individual case. Immigration Rules, salary thresholds and occupation lists change frequently always take advice on your specific facts before acting.