The UK is to make it harder for employers to hire staff from overseas by raising the salary threshold for skilled workers and banning carers from bringing their families to the UK in a bid to cut record immigration levels by 300,000 a year.
Under plans set out by Home Secretary James Cleverly to tackle the politically charged issue, workers will have to earn at least £38,700 to get a visa, up from £26,200, while care workers will be banned from bringing in dependants from next April.
Employers will no longer be able to pay overseas workers less than British workers in sectors where there is a shortage of staff, and the salary threshold for spousal visas will also be raised.
Monday’s announcement came as Rishi Sunak’s government sought to regain the initiative on immigration ahead of a general election expected next year.
“Overall, this package will mean around 300,000 fewer people coming in over the next few years,” Cleverly said, adding that migration to the UK was “far too high”.
In a major blow to the government’s policies on irregular and legal migration, the Supreme Court last month blocked Sunak’s flagship policy of sending “small boat” migrants to Rwanda, and official data showed net legal migration hit a record high of 745,000 in 2022.
But some employers said Monday’s package could increase costs and exacerbate labour shortages, while unions attacked the restrictions on family members.
Neil Carberry, chief executive of the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, said the package was a “very significant tightening” that “sends a really bad signal around the world”.
He added that it would particularly affect smaller, regional companies already struggling to afford visa fees or compete with London wages.
“Once again … the interests of business have taken second place to the internal politics of the Conservative party,” he said.
The changes mean that British citizens and those already settled in the UK will also have to earn £38,700 – almost double the minimum wage – if they want to bring a family member from outside the UK to join them.
Miriam Deakin, director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, which speaks for health organisations across England, said the measures were “deeply concerning” because it was “vital that overseas health and care workers continue to see the UK as a viable place to work and live”.
Christina McAnea, general secretary of Unison, the main union for social care workers, said the “cruel” plans would “spell total disaster” for health and social care as “migrants will now seek out more welcoming countries rather than be forced to live without their families”.
More than half of the migrants currently entering the UK under the care route are dependants, many of them children.
Cleverly said health and social care workers would be exempt from the increase in the salary threshold “so we can keep bringing them in” to fill chronic shortages.
But he added that only employers regulated by the Care Quality Commission would be able to sponsor care worker visas, to prevent bogus or unscrupulous groups from exploiting the system.
The Migration Advisory Committee, which advises the government, called in October for the shortage occupation list to be scrapped altogether, warning that it could drive down wages and leave workers vulnerable to exploitation.
To qualify for a skilled worker visa, people must usually be hired on a salary of at least £26,200, or in higher-paid occupations, be paid the ‘going rate’ for the job, as set by the Home Office.
A lower salary threshold – of £20,480 or 80 per cent of the ‘going rate’ for the job – has previously applied to skilled workers in jobs on a Home Office list of ‘shortage occupations’.
The standard threshold has not risen with inflation. It was set at £25,600 when the post-Brexit visa system was introduced in 2021, and would be over £30,000 today if it had kept pace with consumer prices.
The new level of £38,700 is roughly equivalent to the UK median wage and is unlikely to have a significant impact on overseas recruitment in sectors such as finance and consultancy, which have traditionally made the most use of the skilled worker visa route.
But Jonathan Portes, professor at King’s College London, said it could “stifle” the recruitment of migrants to fill mid-skilled jobs, such as chefs, where employers struggling to replace EU workers after Brexit have increasingly used the visa system in recent years.
Cleverly said he would also launch a review of the shortage occupation list, which would result in fewer occupations being included, while still having a salary threshold lower than the £38,700 set for the main visa route.
He also said he had asked the MAC to review the graduate route, which allows students to stay in the UK for two years after graduation, or three years if they have a doctorate, “to reduce opportunities for abuse”.
