Tradeable Points and Salary for Skilled Worker Visa

How the points fit together

A Skilled Worker visa needs 70 points. Fifty of them are mandatory and cannot be traded:

• 20 for sponsorship — a job offer from an employer with a licence, on a valid certificate of sponsorship;
• 20 for a job at the appropriate skill level; and
• 10 for English at level B2, or B1 where your most recent permission was as a Skilled Worker granted subject to a B1 requirement.

The remaining 20 points are for salary, and they are where the flexibility sits. The rules set out a list of options, each a pair of conditions: a cash floor, and a percentage of the going rate for your occupation code. You must satisfy both halves of whichever option you use. Meeting one option earns the full 20 points; there is no partial award and no stacking.

Nothing is awarded for salary at all unless the 20 sponsorship points and the 20 skill-level points have also been awarded.

The options

These are the options open to a new applicant, as set out in Appendix Skilled Worker. Each requires the salary to equal or exceed both figures.

• Standard. £41,700 a year and the going rate for the occupation code.
• PhD relevant to the job. £37,500 a year and 90% of the going rate.
• PhD in a science, technology, engineering or maths subject relevant to the job. £33,400 a year and 80% of the going rate.
• Job on the Immigration Salary List. £33,400 a year and the going rate — the full rate, not a percentage of it.
• New entrant at the start of their career. £33,400 a year and 70% of the going rate.
• Listed health or education job. £25,000 a year and the going rate from the relevant national pay scale.

A separate set of options, with lower floors of £31,300, £28,200 and £25,000, is reserved for two groups: people sponsored in a health and care job paid on the lower salary basis, and people granted permission as a Skilled Worker under the rules in place before 4 April 2024 who have held it continuously since, applying before 4 April 2030. A prison officer (code 3314) can also use the £31,300 option, on a certificate of sponsorship issued before 1 January 2028 running no more than 3 years.

The Immigration Salary List is not a going-rate discount

This is the most repeated error about the route, so it is worth stating plainly. Being on the Immigration Salary List lowers the cash floor from £41,700 to £33,400, and lowers the application fee to £628 or £1,235. It does not reduce the going rate. The rules require the salary to equal or exceed “the going rate for the SOC 2020 occupation code” in full.

The 80% going-rate discount belonged to the shortage occupation list, which was abolished in April 2024. Any guide still describing it is describing a rule that no longer exists.

The list is drawn up for each nation of the UK, so a job can be on it in one nation and not another, and it is reviewed with advice from the Migration Advisory Committee.

New entrant, in detail

The rules treat someone as a new entrant if any one of these applies:

• they are under 26 on the date of application;
• the job is a postdoctoral position in occupation code 2111, 2112, 2113, 2114, 2115, 2119, 2162 or 2311;
• the job is in a UK regulated profession and they are working towards a recognised UK professional qualification for it;
• they are working towards full registration or chartered status with the professional body for the job;
• their most recent permission was as a Student — expired less than 2 years ago, if expired — sponsored to study a UK bachelor's degree, master's, PhD, Postgraduate Certificate in Education or Professional Graduate Diploma of Education, and they have completed it, are within 3 months of completing it, or have done at least 12 months of a UK PhD; or
• their most recent permission was as a Graduate, expired less than 2 years ago if expired.

The 4-year cap. A grant must not take combined permission as a Skilled Worker, Graduate or Tier 2 Migrant beyond 4 years in total, whether or not that time was continuous. After that, a further application has to meet one of the other options in full.

PhD options, in detail

Both PhD options require the occupation code to be one the rules list as eligible for PhD points — not every code is. You need a UK PhD or other doctoral qualification, or an overseas qualification that Ecctis confirms meets the standard of a UK PhD.

The sponsor must give a credible explanation of how the qualification is relevant to the job, and, for the science, technology, engineering and maths option, a credible explanation that the subject is one of those. Relevance is the point: a doctorate unconnected to the role does not earn these points. If the points were correctly awarded on an earlier grant of permission you do not have to evidence the qualification again, but the sponsor still has to explain its relevance.

Health and education jobs

Listed health and education occupations take their going rate from national pay scales rather than a single published figure, with a floor of £25,000. See our Health and Care Worker salary guide.

There is one temporary allowance inside this option. A nurse in one of the nursing occupation codes may be paid less than £25,000 for up to 8 months, where they previously held Nursing and Midwifery Council registration and are on an approved return-to-practice programme, or where they have passed the council's English and computer-based competence tests and will sit the practical clinical examination no later than 3 months after the job start date.

Points for employers

• The option being relied on has to be reflected on the certificate of sponsorship, including the explanation of a PhD's relevance where that option is used.
• New entrant status runs out. A worker sponsored on it will need to meet another option within 4 years of combined Skilled Worker, Graduate and Tier 2 permission.
• Only guaranteed basic gross pay counts towards any of these figures. Our salary calculation guide sets out what is excluded, and how the going rate is pro-rated to working hours.

The published rates are in the going rates tables, and the plain-English version of these options is on GOV.UK. Our employer overview of visa types covers the wider picture.

Related guides

• Skilled Worker salary threshold
• The Immigration Salary List
• Going rate for the Skilled Worker visa
• The points-based system explained

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