The UK (UK) has eliminated over 100 occupations from the checklist of eligible sponsored jobs and considerably elevated wage thresholds by at the least 30 p.c in lots of instances.
This has prompted many Expert Employee and Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) visas to be thrown into uncertainty, implying that many Nigerians might need to return again residence.
Below the brand new guidelines, the wage requirement for the overall Expert Employee visa has risen to £41,700, whereas Well being and Care roles retain a decrease threshold of £25,600.
The revised coverage impacts all employers aspiring to sponsor overseas staff, successfully rendering many lower-level roles in IT, customer support, and administration ineligible until salaries are considerably elevated.
The revised laws, which took impact on July 22, 2025, types a part of the UK authorities’s wider technique to scale back internet migration.
Learn additionally: UK halts health, care worker visas amid immigration crackdown
Among the many adjustments is the exclusion of quite a few roles beforehand categorized underneath RQF Ranges 3 to five from the eligibility for sponsorship underneath the Expert Employee visa scheme.
Except listed on the newly established Short-term Scarcity Occupation Record, positions corresponding to care supervisors, administrative employees, and technical assist roles will not qualify for sponsorship.
The affected job classes cuts throughout a variety of sectors, together with hospitality, logistics, healthcare assist, public providers, and the artistic industries impacting hundreds of overseas staff, lots of whom had beforehand relied on these roles to safe authorized employment within the UK.
Notably, occupations delisted embody: Managers and proprietors in agriculture, hospitality and logistics (SOC 1211–1258); Well being and neighborhood roles like pharmaceutical technicians, youth staff, and counsellors (SOC 3211–3224); Protecting service jobs corresponding to cops (beneath sergeant), fireplace and jail officers (SOC 3312–3314); Inventive professionals together with actors, authors, designers and photographers (SOC 3411–3429);
Learn additionally:UK skilled worker visa list adds 200 roles, including social media influencers
For well being and care sector employers, the brand new guidelines stipulates that the minimal wage threshold of £41,700 should now be met after deductions corresponding to lodging and transport which has raised the bar considerably for continued sponsorship.
Consultants have warned of longer-term implications noting that though nobody has been terminated but because of these adjustments, the implications will turn out to be obvious on the finish of present visa sponsorship phrases, which often final between one and 5 years.
For these whose jobs are not on the eligible checklist, they might not be capable of renew or safe a brand new sponsorship in the identical discipline. With out a legitimate visa, they can’t be undocumented.
One other problem identified for these whose jobs stay eligible however fall wanting the brand new wage threshold, is that any firm that can’t meet the revised £41,700 requirement, the visa of the worker won’t be renewed when it expires.
Information from the House Workplace had proven an growing pattern in visas grants to Nigerians.
In 2021, 10,245 Expert Employee visas had been issued, however fell to eight,491 in 2022 earlier than surging to 26,715 in 2023. However figures for 2024 began to point one other downturn.
As this technique to priorities high-skilled, high-wage roles, many Nigerian staff now face an unsure and probably shortened keep future within the UK.
