Skilled Worker Salary Must Be Met Every Pay Period from 8 April 2026
26 Mar 2026
If you are on a Skilled Worker visa, a compliance change taking effect on 8 April 2026 affects how your salary is checked against your visa conditions — and it matters for your route to ILR.
Until now, your sponsor's compliance with salary thresholds has been assessed primarily on an annualised basis. From 8 April, the rules shift: your salary must meet the required going rate threshold in each individual pay period. There are defined averaging windows — three months, twelve weeks, or seventeen weeks, depending on how frequently you are paid — but the key change is that UKVI can now identify a single underpayment without needing to look at your full year of earnings.
Why this matters for ILR: Any gap between your actual pay and the threshold required by your visa is a potential compliance failure. If your sponsor is found to have underpaid you during your qualifying period, it could affect your ILR application. This is especially relevant if your pay includes variable elements — bonuses, commission, unpaid leave, or reductions for sickness — that could cause individual pay periods to fall short.
What to do: Talk to your HR or payroll team now. Ask them to confirm they understand the new per-period assessment rule, and check whether any planned changes to your pay — such as taking unpaid leave, changing hours, or adjusting a bonus structure — could temporarily bring a pay period below your visa threshold. If you are approaching your ILR application date, it is worth reviewing your payslips for the last few years to check for any periods that might look irregular. The change was introduced through the Immigration Rules Statement of Changes HC 1691, published 5 March 2026, and comes into force on 8 April 2026.
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