Ben Maitland examines what employers can do to address the Immigration White Paper for LexisNexis

2 June 2025

The government estimates that the policies they have unveiled in their Immigration White Paper will reduce UK’s immigration by roughly a further 98,000 a year. Individually the proposals will discourage and prevent many immigrants – especially carers and those on lower-paid jobs. Together, these measures will have impacts far beyond curbing migrant workers, including on the sectors they work in.

From Publicans to Plasterers, Estate Agents to Interior Designers, Musicians to Managers of healthcare practices, we have counted 171 professions that will no longer qualify as skilled enough to come to the UK on the Skilled Worker visa according to the Immigration White Paper.

Senior Associate Ben Maitland has written a new article for LexisNexis on measures employers can take to prepare for and mitigate the upcoming changes.

The Skilled Worker visa has been the most popular work immigration route for UK employers in the years following Britain leaving the EU’s free movement regime. Most applicants were health and care workers, though these have dropped significantly since care workers were not allowed to bring dependants to the UK any more.  These key proposals in the Immigration White Paper organisations will mean employers may need alternative immigration solutions to Skilled Worker visas in some cases going forward:

• ending sponsorship of new care workers from overseas;
• raising minimum skill level to sponsor Skilled Workers to RQF6 (degree level in skill rather than educational attainment);
• raising minimum salary thresholds;
• Temporary Shortage List replaces the Immigration Salary List for temporary sponsorship of key lower-skilled shortage jobs;
• raising minimum levels for English language ability;
• increasing the annual immigration skills charge by 32%;
• doubling the time it takes to qualify to settle permanently to ten years;
• shortening the Graduate visa to 18 months; and
• facilitating highly skilled immigration, using routes such as Global Talent, High Potential Individual and Innovator Founder

When these proposals will be introduced ranges from ‘within weeks’ to ‘within this parliament’, so sponsors and skilled workers will need to keep abreast of Home Office announcements.

“Sponsors are going to need to budget for higher sponsorship costs and review hiring requirements, possibly bringing forward applications for key personnel before the changes are implemented,” Ben Maitland writes in LexisNexis. “For those in sectors reliant on high levels of recruitment from abroad, workforce plans to address the skills shortage are being introduced. It makes sense to engage with sector bodies to influence government plans to invest and train the domestic workforce, because the plans contribute to the decisions regarding the Temporary Shortage List as well as the long-term solution of filling these roles with domestic workers where possible.”