Work Visas

The Skilled Worker visa is the main direct-employer route into UK work: a Home Office-licensed sponsor offers a job in an eligible occupation and issues a certificate of sponsorship, and the applicant must meet the route's published salary, skill-level and English language requirements. It supports a partner and children as dependants, and continuous time on the route leads towards settlement once the qualifying period and other published conditions are met.

The Health and Care Worker visa is a variant of the same sponsored, employer-led route, reserved for doctors, nurses and other health or social-care professionals sponsored by the NHS, an NHS-linked supplier, or an adult social-care provider. It shares the Skilled Worker route's certificate-of-sponsorship structure and settlement path, with published salary and dependant rules adjusted for the health and care sector and, for some care-worker occupations, added restrictions on which family members can join.

The Global Talent visa is an independent route for recognised or emerging leaders in academia and research, arts and culture, or digital technology. Rather than a job offer and sponsor, most applicants need an endorsement from an approved body in their field, though winners of a defined list of eligible prestigious prizes can apply directly. It gives more flexibility than a sponsored route, because holders can work for themselves, change employer freely, or hold multiple roles, and it leads towards settlement after a qualifying period that depends on the endorsing body and the criteria the endorsement was made under.

The Senior or Specialist Worker visa is one of the Global Business Mobility routes: it lets an existing employee of an overseas business transfer to that same employer's UK branch, rather than join a new UK employer. Like the Skilled Worker route it needs a certificate of sponsorship, an eligible occupation and a published salary threshold, but it does not include a separate English language test, and, unlike the Skilled Worker and Health and Care Worker routes, it is not a settlement route: time on it does not lead to indefinite leave to remain.

The UK Expansion Worker visa is the other Global Business Mobility route, and is narrower still: it is only for a senior manager or specialist employee sent to set up a new UK branch or subsidiary of an overseas business that is not yet trading in the UK. Once that UK operation begins trading, further sponsorship typically continues instead under the Senior or Specialist Worker route. Like that route, it needs a certificate of sponsorship and an eligible occupation, has no separate English test, and does not lead to settlement.

The High Potential Individual visa is unsponsored and independent of any job offer: eligibility rests on holding a qualifying degree-level award, within a defined recent window, from an institution on the published Global Universities List for the date it was awarded. It lets the holder work in most jobs, look for work, or be self-employed without needing an employer or endorsement first, but, unlike several of the other routes in this category, it cannot be extended and does not itself count towards settlement. The route is capped at 8,000 applications a year.