Changes to the Immigration Rules are afoot – what can providers do now?
Last Wednesday, government announced a host of changes to the Immigration Rules including changes to the Skilled Worker Visa regime that will affect health and care providers.
We discuss the changes and how providers can respond.
The Changes
Three significant changes were announced last week:
1. an increase in ‘going rates’ i.e. minimum pay for health and care workers in sponsored roles;
2. a new resident labour market requirement for sponsors requesting Defined COS;
3. new rules effectively banning some types of loans to employees.
Get the detail below and find out how you can respond.
If you need help navigating the changes, we’re here.
Going Rates
From 9th April 2025, the going rates for care and support workers will increase to £12.82/hr (£25,000pa) and for nurses and AHPs in England to £29,970. Slightly different rates apply in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland.
Having become an annual UKVI tradition, the increases were anticipated, yet the growing gap between NMW and going rate is a source of increasing concern for providers, piling on further financial pressure and leaving some unable to access overseas recruitment, despite perennially challenging local labour markets.
The justification for the growing gap is also unclear. It is not large enough to completely discourage overseas recruitment and still leaves caring roles underpaid compared to many other comparable roles. At the same time, it is not apt to prevent exploitation of foreign workers and by adding a premium to overseas workers, seems to run counter to government’s current aim of encouraging the recruitment of ‘displaced talent’ – overseas workers already in the UK who have lost their sponsorship or have insufficient work.
Resident Labour Market Test
Intended to push employers to recruiting displaced talent, 9th April will see the introduction of a resident labour market test – albeit in a different form to its last iteration.
Sponsors applying for Defined COS after that will have to provide evidence that they have engaged with the “relevant regional or sub-regional partnership” that is supporting displaced talent and confirm that they have found no suitable candidates in that pool.
This new requirement raises many concerns. Not only does it restrict the choice of private organisations, but it also puts a function of the immigration system in the hands of bodies which in some cases, are not public bodies, or have no clear legal status at all. Add to that questions about the capacity, impartiality and accountability of those bodies and we predict that this new requirement could be ripe for challenge.
Loans to Sponsored Workers
Recent changes to the Immigration Rules have limited the ability of sponsors to clawback the costs of sponsorship from the workers themselves. The new rules will also effectively nullify attempts to pass on those costs by way of loans, counting any such loan against the salary of the sponsored worker, thereby potentially taking it below the going rate, which would be a reason to refuse both a visa and COS allocation application.
Not all loans will be affected, loans that are for “an additional benefit offer which the applicant has a genuine choice whether to take up, for example salary sacrifice arrangements” will not be caught.
As with the new resident labour market test, the devil is in the detail and the lack of detail in the drafting here (what is and is not an ‘additional benefit’?) leaves something to be desired.
Given how difficult it is to get clarity, updates to the Immigration Rules should give sponsors clarity and certainty about what they can and cannot do.
What to do now?
Providers can act now to mitigate these changes.
Assign available Defined & Undefined COS as soon as possible - current going rates apply on COS assigned before new rates take effect.
Consider making an application for Defined COS before the new rules take effect if there is any chance the COS will be needed over needed over the coming months.
Review remuneration packages (including loan arrangements) for sponsored workers to ensure they are compliant once the changes are in force.
Need help?
Not only do we provide a comprehensive service with the best people, we’re also here to help providers a complex immigration landscape. Contact us to find out what we can do for you.
BA Healthcare
We have been helping clients navigate international recruitment for 25 years, if you need help or advice or want to find out how our comprehensive service can help you build or transform. Just get in contact.
BAHealthcare is the care sector’s first-choice partner for overseas personnel. A British business, led by an Anglo-Filipino team, headquartered in Malaysia with bases in the UAE and Hong Kong, since founding in 2000, we have worked with some of the country’s largest providers and some of the smallest, including specialist services for children and young people. We have deployed 10,000+ nurses, carers and other professionals – primarily from Filipino ex-pat communities across Asia – to the UK and beyond. We partner to provide committed, experienced, well-qualified nurses and carers that create thriving, sustainable workforces, and help organisations to strengthen and grow.
