Advisers Urge UK Government to Ease Skilled Worker Visa Salary Threshold. The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) says that the UK should lower the present income limits for skilled worker visas.
These thresholds make it hard for some important jobs, younger professionals, and firms outside of London to get into the immigration system.
The MAC said in a report that came out on Wednesday that salary criteria for certain jobs were now set higher than they needed to be to keep migrant workers from undercutting local salaries. To meet visa requirements, firms sometimes have to pay foreign workers a lot more than they would pay UK workers. This raises questions about justice and limits recruiting alternatives across the country.
The committee said that, for example, universities can hire professors but not research fellows or junior lecturers who make less money. An academic librarian making £41,700 is eligible for sponsorship, while an IT director making £85,000 might not be because of differences in pay ranges for different jobs.
The previous Conservative administration made the standards stricter. They said that firms had to pay overseas workers at least the median income for their job, as well as a general salary floor of £41,700 for all skilled professions. These stricter criteria were part of efforts to lower net migration, which reached record highs after Brexit and the epidemic.
The Labour administration has now implemented more rules that make it so that most work visas can only be used for jobs that require a graduate degree, with a few exceptions in essential industries. These steps have lowered net migration from 649,000 in the year ending in June 2024 to 204,000 by June 2025, which is below the levels before Brexit.
But Professor Brian Bell, the chair of MAC, said that migration numbers were probably “close to bottoming out.” He warned that deeper cuts would involve targeting student and work visa pathways, which are easier to regulate than refugee flows but worse for the economy and the budget.
The committee suggested changing the occupation-specific thresholds to the 25th percentile of UK earnings. This would imply that migrant workers would still make more than a quarter of British workers in the same jobs. It said that Britain’s existing strategy “makes little sense,” pointing out that even software developers who make £44,900 a year, which is the median income for that job, would not qualify since their job category is inflated by higher-paid software engineers and architects.
The MAC noted that keeping the general income limit at £41,700 would marginally raise net migration, but it would make sure that all foreign workers pay their fair share of taxes. To cut down on migration even more, the entire threshold would have to be raised, but this could mean less tax money coming in.
The research also talked about problems for younger visa holders who first qualify at lower rates but then have to pay a lot more to stay in the UK. Many companies think this is unfair and unrealistic compared to wage scales in the UK.
The government asked the MAC to look over the guidelines for salaries after the election, and now it will look at what the MAC said. Any changes are likely to go into effect next April, when immigration rules are usually updated.
The MAC looks at wage thresholds and discounts for a number of migration routes in the latest study. These routes include the Skilled Worker (SW), Health and Care Worker, Global Business Mobility, and Scale-up routes. The committee says that these income requirements have many roles in migration policy. For example, they help keep migrants from being underpaid, encourage companies to hire domestic workers first, make sure that migrants pay taxes, and control the number of people who move to the country.
The MAC thinks that keeping the general Skilled Worker salary criterion at £41,700 is the best way to meet the needs of the labour market and the government’s finances. The committee says that this number helps with hiring in important industries while also showing how wages vary across the UK. The committee says that while a higher criterion would somewhat lower net migration, it would probably have worse effects on the economy and make it harder for younger workers to be paid.
The report also says that the previous government’s plan to raise occupation-specific limits from the 25th to the 50th percentile of earnings in 2024 should be reversed. It says that this move hasn’t helped fulfil policy goals, especially the goal of lowering immigration, and that it has made the criteria less effective at protecting domestic workers from wage undercutting.
The committee suggests a new single “new entrant” rate of £33,400 to help graduate admission. It also suggests doing rid of the PhD discount because there isn’t enough proof that PhD holders earn less than normal workers. MAC also doesn’t think there needs to be a separate postdoctoral discount if the general SW level stays at £41,700.
More suggestions include changing the pay rates for the Temporary Shortage List, the Global Business Mobility route, and jobs in health and care that are related to these areas. The committee also warns against making new pathways like the Scale-up visa, which hasn’t been very popular, unless there is a demonstrable need for them in the job market.