Which job roles are affected by the UK’s Immigration White Paper?

14 May 2025

The government estimates that the policies they have unveiled in their Immigration White Paper will reduce UK’s immigration figures (already on a downwards trajectory after a post-Brexit, post-pandemic spike that peaked in 2023) 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 this week’s Immigration White Paper. We have listed these below so sectors can see how they will be affected by these 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.

The Immigration White Paper sets out plans to stop the hiring of Care workers and Senior care workers from abroad this year. There is a transition period until 2028 for visa extensions and in-country switching for those already in the country on these routes, to be kept under review. The consequences to the care sector are immense. Employers will now be very concerned to see if public funding may bolster the sector as part of measures to improve pay and conditions in the current Employment Rights Bill. Providers are sceptical about this being enough to fill skill gaps solely from resident workers and an estimated 30,000 people currently in the UK on such visas but without a sponsor.

Certain sectors will be affected by the measures in the White Paper more than others. Within this parliament and possibly this year, new Skilled Worker visa applications will be confined to jobs deemed to be at a skill level of RQF 6 or above (roughly translating to degree level or above – in skill level rather than educational attainment). The government is determined to curb immigration of those they see as lower skilled. We have worked out how many occupations may no longer qualify for the Skilled Worker visa and have counted 171 jobs – see below (mainly hospitality, retail, construction, creative – but a major swathe of professions will be affected).

Some of these will receive temporary reprieves and may still be sponsored on the “Temporary Shortage List” – see below the following list – but this is still a massive shift. The 171 professions include a vast array of occupations from Artists to Aircraft technicians, Fishmongers to Floorers, Chefs to Clothing, Fashion and Accessories designers. The sheer extent of jobs listed below will be of concern to many UK employers and will doubtless affect recruitment strategies, business costs and investment.

If you are concerned and would like to discuss how to mitigate these changes, do email one of our lawyers or call 0207 033 9527 sooner rather than later.

There will be a transitional provision for those already on the Skilled Worker route in these jobs which allows them to extend their visa, change employment and take supplementary employment including in occupations below RQF6. However, applicants from overseas, or those applying to switch from other immigration routes, will have to follow the new rules.

We expect more announcements, possibly following consultations, on who will now face the new 10 year route to settlement announced in the White Paper. This doubling from five years will cause consternation to migrants who are currently on a route to settlement, as well as sponsors whose immigration costs will double.

We have listed below the jobs below that are on SOC codes (Standard Occupational Classification code is used to categorize jobs based on skill level and type of work performed by the Office for National Statistics for immigration and labour market analysis) that are RQF 3-5 and so will no longer qualify for sponsoring as a Skilled Worker, though some may appear on the new Temporary Shortage List that replaces a (very temporary) Immigration Salary List (which only replaced the Shortage Occupation List last April, with its ever shorter list of shortage occupations.)

Which occupations may no longer be sponsored as a Skilled Worker?

Where does this list of jobs deemed not qualified enough for a Skilled Worker visa come from?

A note on our methodology: Table 1 of the UK Immigration Rules Appendix Skilled Occupations contains all current eligible roles at RQF3 and above (RQF3 meaning school-leaver / A-level work). These can currently all be sponsored as a Skilled Worker. We removed all the more highly skilled RQF6+ (degree level and above) SOC codes which can be found in Table 2  for Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker roles.

Which jobs are likely to appear on the new Temporary Shortage List?

For the above occupations with a skills requirement of RQF3-5, there will be a Temporary Shortage List for sectors where “there have been long term shortages” – “temporary,” nonetheless as the government will only permit sectors to employ at this skill level “on a time limited basis where the Migration Advisory Committee has advised it is justified, where there is a workforce strategy in place, and where employers seeking to recruit from abroad are committed to playing their part in increasing recruitment from the domestic workforce.” Skills and training strategies will be expected to eventually fill such gaps in the labour market with resident workers.

Migrant workers sponsored on the Temporary Shortage List will have “restrictions on bringing dependants”. This will be dispiriting news to those considering coming to the UK to work in these jobs and put many off as evidenced by the fall in international students and care workers when dependent family were prohibited from joining them on their visas. According to the White Paper, these visas will be temporary so time spent on them may not count towards settlement. Again, this would put some candidates off.

Crucially, sectors will only be potentially added to the Temporary Shortage list if they are deemed by the Migration Advisory Committee to be key to the UK’s industrial strategy or delivering critical infrastructure. This will involve lengthy consultations this year, so we would advise sectors to build evidenced-based cases for inclusion on the Temporary Shortage List, as well as workforce strategies towards less reliance from abroad.

In the interim, the Temporary Shortage List will contain occupations that the Committee has recently considered to be in shortage, or which are crucial to the delivery of the UK’s Industrial Strategy. In an early indication, the Home Secretary gave one example in the House of Commons this week: “construction workers will be on the temporary shortage list because they are clearly crucial to growth in our economy. However, that has to happen alongside respect for the workforce strategy, which is why the Education Secretary has set out proposals to train 60,000 more construction workers here in the UK.” This offers some reassurance to the construction industry as a great many of the jobs on the list above are in building and associated trades.

Will any other professionals below the Skilled Worker skill level be able to obtain work visas for the UK?

In the past there were exceptional carve-outs for certain jobs not meeting qualification requirements – for example, top chefs – ie: Senior chefs at restaurants that don’t do  takeaways were on the old Shortage Occupation List and certain creative roles earned extra points when the Tier 2 (General) visa, which was replaced by the Skilled Worker visa, generally required job offers at RQF Level 6 or higher.

We noticed that Indian “Chefs and Yoga instructors” were reportedly among those who would be able to obtain work visas for the UK as part of the recent Free Trade Agreement with India. Both would not qualify for Skilled Worker visas according to the list above. Yet for now there is no mention of any such exceptions in the White Paper: just the Temporary Shortage List’s sectoral approach to longterm labour shortages key to the UK’s industrial strategy or delivering critical infrastructure. We can expect consultations to shape a lot of the policies in the White Paper and a Labour Market Evidence Group is to be set up to advise on sectoral labour needs.

In some cases there may be other work or personal immigration routes that individuals may be able to use, which we can advise on.

Please contact us if you are concerned about these changes, or have any other questions about UK immigration, nationality, right to work and sponsorship procedures and compliance. You can use the form below, email one of our lawyers or call 0207 033 9527.