UK Skilled Worker visa 2026: salary, fees and English from Nigeria, India, Pakistan, South Africa

You need a confirmed job offer from a UK employer approved by the Home Office, and a Certificate of Sponsorship that describes the role ¹. You can apply up to 3 months before your start date, online only, and a decision from outside the UK usually takes 3 weeks ¹. The visa can last up to 5 years before you extend it ¹.

Job level. The list of eligible occupations sits in Appendix Skilled Occupations of the Immigration Rules. Its main tables list occupation codes skilled to RQF level 6 or above, which is graduate level ⁷. Occupations at RQF 3 to 5 can only be sponsored through the Temporary Shortage List or the immigration salary list, or for people who already held Skilled Worker permission granted before 22 July 2025 ^{7 2}. In practice, a first application from Lagos, Delhi, Karachi or Johannesburg needs a graduate level role or a role on one of those lists.

Salary. You must be paid at least £41,700 a year, or the going rate for your occupation code if that is higher ². Health and education jobs follow national pay scales instead ². Care worker codes are closed to applicants from abroad: see our guide on that change.

Each occupation code has its own going rate, based on 37.5 hours a week ⁶. The table was last updated on 22 July 2025 ⁶. Some examples:

Code	Job	Standard going rate	Lower going rate
2134	Programmers and software development professionals	£54,700	£40,000
2133	IT business analysts, architects and systems designers	£54,900	£42,400
2135	Cyber security professionals	£48,500	£35,300
2121	Civil engineers	£50,400	£39,200
2421	Chartered and certified accountants	£49,200	£36,900
2431	Management consultants and business analysts	£50,200	£36,000

The lower going rate applies only to some Health and Care Worker applicants and to people whose certificate for their first Skilled Worker visa was assigned before 4 April 2024 and who have held this visa ever since ⁶. A first application from abroad uses the standard rate. For a software developer the standard going rate of £54,700 is above £41,700, so £54,700 is the figure to meet ^{6 2}.

When you can be paid less. You can be paid 70% of the going rate, with a floor of £33,400, if you are under 26, a student, a recent graduate or in professional training; your total stay on these terms cannot exceed 4 years, Graduate visa included ³. A PhD relevant to the job allows 80% of the going rate with a floor of £33,400 for STEM subjects, or 90% with a floor of £37,500 for other subjects ³. A job on the immigration salary list needs at least £33,400 and the full going rate ³.

Your costs ⁴:

Item	Amount
Visa fee, outside the UK, up to 3 years	£819
Visa fee, outside the UK, more than 3 years	£1,618
Visa fee, immigration salary list job, up to 3 years	£628
Visa fee, immigration salary list job, more than 3 years	£1,235
Immigration Health Surcharge	£1,035 a year
Funds in your bank account	£1,270

A 3-year visa from Nigeria therefore costs £819 plus 3 times £1,035, which is £3,924 before travel (our arithmetic). Each family member who comes with you pays the fee and the surcharge too ⁴. The £1,270 must stay in your account for 28 consecutive days, ending within 31 days of your application; you are exempt if your sponsor covers your first month up to £1,270 and says so on the certificate ⁴.

Your employer's costs. The sponsor licence costs £611 for small or charitable sponsors and £1,682 for medium or large ones, and most decisions take under 8 weeks ⁸. Each Certificate of Sponsorship costs £525 ⁹. The Immigration Skills Charge is £480 (small sponsors) or £1,320 (medium and large) for the first 12 months, plus £240 or £660 for each further 6 months ¹⁰. The sponsor must pay the certificate fee itself, and its licence may be revoked if it asks you to pay it or any costs linked to its application ⁹.

New applicants need English at level B2 in reading, writing, speaking and listening ⁵. People who already held this visa before 8 January 2026 and extend it need B1 ⁵. Nigeria, India, Pakistan and South Africa are not on the list of nationalities exempt from the test ⁵. You can prove English with a Secure English Language Test from an approved provider, a UK degree, or a foreign degree taught in English that Ecctis confirms is equivalent to a UK bachelor's degree or higher ⁵.

Nigeria, India, Pakistan and South Africa are all on the list of countries where you need a tuberculosis test, taken at a clinic approved by the Home Office ¹². Add the certificate to your application.

Check your passport, your Certificate of Sponsorship reference and your bank statements for the 28-day funds rule before you pay the fee ⁴.

Fake "UK visa sponsorship" offers target people in Nigeria, India and Pakistan. In July 2026 the High Court in London wound up, after an Insolvency Service investigation, a recruiter that took fees of up to £1,199 from 23 workers from Nigeria, Pakistan and the Philippines and never filed a single visa application; the company was not on the register of licensed sponsors ¹⁴.

Four checks before you pay or send documents:

• Search the register. The Home Office publishes the register of licensed sponsors for the Worker routes; the version we checked was updated on 6 November 2026 ¹¹. If the company is missing, stop.
• Never pay for your certificate. The sponsor pays the certificate fee and the licence fee itself, and must not pass them to you ^{9 8}.
• Never pay a visa in cash or by money transfer. GOV.UK says you will never be asked to pay for a visa that way ¹³.
• Apply on GOV.UK yourself. The application is online only ¹.

Report a scam to Report Fraud, with a copy of the message, the sender's address and the date you received it ¹³.

On 2 November 2026 the Home Secretary set out the new earned settlement rules: the default qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain becomes 10 years, with 5 years for people earning over £50,271 and for some public service workers such as doctors, nurses and teachers, and 3 years for top-rate taxpayers ^{15 16}. The announcement gives no start date, and the Immigration Rules will decide how it applies to people already on this visa ¹⁶.

A law firm also reports that the Budget of 28 October 2026 announced that from spring 2027 occupation going rates will move from median earnings to the 25th percentile, and that the general threshold will be updated with 2026 wage data; no new figures have been published ¹⁷. We found no GOV.UK page with these salary changes yet: check GOV.UK before relying on them.