Skilled Worker Visa Refusal: Common Reasons and What to Do

Refusals in context

The Home Office refuses on specific, documented grounds, and the decision letter sets out which. Reading it closely is the first step, because the ground decides what the options are.

About 15% of skilled work visa decisions were a refusal in the year ending June 2026. Home Office — Immigration system statistics, year ending June 2026. That figure covers the Skilled Worker and Health and Care Worker routes together, and refusal rates vary by route and nationality.

The grounds that come up most

1. Salary below the figure that applies

Since 22 July 2025 the general threshold has been £41,700 a year, or the going rate for the occupation code if that is higher. It rose from £38,700 on that date. A lower threshold of £33,400 applies to some groups, and healthcare and education jobs use national pay scales with a floor of £25,000, but each of those has its own evidence requirements. See our salary threshold guide.

Two things trip people up here. The first is what counts as salary: guaranteed basic gross pay, and not overtime, shift pay, bonuses, allowances or benefits in kind. Our salary calculation guide goes through it. The second is the Immigration Salary List: it gives a lower salary floor and a lower application fee, but the full going rate still has to be paid. The going-rate discount ended with the shortage occupation list in April 2024. Check the code in the GOV.UK going rates table.

2. The job is not at the required skill level

Since 22 July 2025 the job must be one GOV.UK lists as “higher skilled”, meaning degree level (RQF 6). The floor used to be RQF 3, roughly A level, and guides written before that date still say so. A job listed as “medium skilled” is only sponsorable if it is on the Immigration Salary List or the Temporary Shortage List, if it is prison officer (code 3314) on an extension or switch, or if you are extending and got your first certificate of sponsorship before 22 July 2025.

The other version of this ground is a code that does not match the work. The employer picks the occupation code, and it has to describe what you will actually do. See the eligible occupations guide and our job eligibility checker.

3. English not proved at the required level

A new application has needed level B2 on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages since 8 January 2026, up from B1. Refusals here tend to involve a test that is not from an approved provider, or a degree taught in English without the assessment from Ecctis that GOV.UK requires for a qualification awarded outside the UK. An extension of a visa held before 8 January 2026 stays at B1 and needs no fresh proof.

4. The vacancy or the intention is not accepted as genuine

The rules let the decision maker consider whether the sponsor has shown a genuine need for the job as described, whether the applicant has the skills, qualifications and experience to do it, and the sponsor's history of compliance, including whether it pays its sponsored workers properly. Separately, the applicant must genuinely intend and be able to do the role, and must not intend to work outside it beyond what the rules permit.

5. Errors on the certificate of sponsorship

The certificate of sponsorship carries the job title, the occupation code, the salary, the hours and the start date. A mistake in any of them can decide the application, however sound the rest of it is. The certificate must also be used within 3 months of being assigned.

6. Money to support yourself

You must have at least £1,270, held for 28 days in a row, unless you have been in the UK with permission for 12 months or more, or your A-rated sponsor certifies on the certificate of sponsorship that it will maintain you to at least that amount up to the end of your first month of employment. Bank statements that do not cover the right 28-day window are a common problem.

What a refusal means straight away

If you applied from outside the UK, the refusal means you cannot travel on that application. If you applied from inside the UK and your previous permission has already expired, the refusal ends the protection that section 3C of the Immigration Act 1971 gave you while the application was pending, and you no longer have permission to be here. Our overstaying guide covers what follows from that, and a regulated adviser can act on your particular facts — see how advisers are regulated.

Administrative review

There is normally no right of appeal on this route. Administrative review is the remedy: a different caseworker checks whether the original decision contained a caseworking error. Your decision letter tells you whether one is available to you.

• If you are outside the UK and applied outside it, the deadline is 28 days from getting the decision.
• If you are in the UK and applied here, it is 14 days — or 7 days if you were detained on the day you got the decision.
• It costs £80, and the application is made online.
• It is slow. GOV.UK says a result can take 12 months or more, and that the Home Office will contact you with an update if there is no decision within 6 months.
• One review only. You cannot ask for a second unless the first found new reasons why the refusal was correct, and the decision letter says whether that applies.

A review corrects errors of handling: a document that was submitted and overlooked, a salary figure misread, the wrong threshold applied. It is not a chance to put in evidence that was not there before. If you are in the UK and your visa has expired, GOV.UK says you will not usually be removed until the review is finished.

Making any other immigration or visa application withdraws a review in progress, and the £80 is not refunded. Full details are on the GOV.UK administrative review page.

A fresh application instead

Where the refusal reflects something the application genuinely did not have, rather than a mistake in handling it, a fresh application is the route that can fix it. There is no waiting period. Points that bear on it:

• every ground in the refusal letter has to be answered, not just the first;
• a new certificate of sponsorship is needed if the old one contained the error, and it must be used within 3 months;
• the rules applied are those in force on the date of the new application, which may differ from the last one; and
• the fee is paid again — see our cost guide.

What reduces the chance of a refusal

• confirming the salary against the published going rate for the exact occupation code before the certificate of sponsorship is assigned;
• checking every field on the certificate: job title, code, salary, hours, start date;
• using an approved test provider, at the level that applies to the application being made;
• bank statements covering the right 28 consecutive days, where the money requirement applies; and
• being able to show what the job is and why the employer needs it, where the sponsor is small or new to sponsorship.

Refusals and later applications

Later UK applications ask you to declare previous refusals, so a refusal has to be disclosed. On its own it is not a bar.

Deception is a different matter. Part 9 of the Immigration Rules treats false representations and withheld material facts as grounds of refusal in their own right, and they can bar applications for a period of years. A refusal recorded on that basis is worth taking to a regulated adviser, because the consequences run well beyond the one application.

Related guides

• Skilled Worker visa: complete guide
• Skilled Worker salary threshold
• Administrative review explained
• Skilled Worker visa requirements
• Skilled Worker extension guide

Questions and answers