HR urged to plan ahead as UK’s immigration reforms reshape recruitment strategy

The new immigration rules are now in force - the most far-reaching immigration reforms in years. Aimed at tightening visa requirements and reducing UK net migration they will have a significant impact over the coming year for both employers recruiting workers and education providers recruiting international students. We’ll speak to an immigration expert helping clients to plan for what lies ahead.

The wide-ranging measures, introduced in the government’s ‘Restoring Control’ immigration white paper in May, came into force on 22 July – at least most of them did – and introduce a wide range of changes across the UK immigration system. These include higher salary and skills thresholds for Skilled Worker visas, tighter restrictions on which roles qualify for sponsorship, and the introduction of a new Temporary Shortage List for certain medium-skilled roles. Other measures under consideration include a proposed reduction of the Graduate visa from 24 to 18 months, new English language requirements for workers and their dependants from 2026, potential changes to settlement rules - including a longer qualifying period - and an increase in the Immigration Skills Charge. Together, these developments affect recruitment, retention, right to work compliance and long-term workforce planning.

Pinsent Masons’ immigration team has published an in-depth analysis of the changes which has been posted to the Out-Law website. It highlights the legal and practical risks for employers, particularly around internal pay fairness, sponsorship eligibility, and avoiding inadvertent discrimination. It also warns that delay could narrow the options available.

So, what does this mean in practice for HR and in-house legal teams? Earlier I caught up with immigration lawyer Alex Wright, who joined me by video link from Manchester. I put that question to him.

Alex Wright: “So one of the big things, and it's been in the press a lot lately particularly around the Labour Party Conference, are proposed changes to the settlement routes for obtaining indefinite leave to remain in the UK. At present, most people on Skilled Worker routes can expect to apply for indefinite leave to remain in the UK after five years. We know that that is being upped to 10 years. Now, we do not know at present whether or not that's going to be retroactive, so anyone who's not settled in the UK yet, but might be on the Skilled Worker route already, or whether there's going to be a particular cut-off date, and people who enter the UK after date X are then subject to those stats. We were hoping for some clarification on that last week and, unfortunately, we simply haven't had it. So at present, we know we are advising employers, until the law changes, until the consultations are done, to base their decisions on the five-year route as it currently is, until we know otherwise. One of the main implications, the most obvious implication, is if you're going to have to have people spending longer being sponsored until they can settle, that's simply going to cost employers more. Employers already pay costs for immigration health surcharges, and application fees If they support their workers, they pay the immigration skills charge to the Home Office every time they sponsor a worker. So it may well be that employers are simply going to have to plan for more sponsorship. We also know that some of the costs associated with that, in particular the immigration skills charge, is going to be going up by, we believe, 32% so there are some fairly chunky bits in there, so employers may be having to pay more and for longer. One of the things that the Home Secretary has mentioned is that there are going to be ‘earned settlement points’ whereby it's possible to reduce the 10 years down closer to five based on contributions to UK society. They've not done the consultation on what that actually means, yet they've mentioned making national insurance contributions, which I think is going to be easy for pretty much any skilled worker not being reliant on benefits which, again, for most skilled workers isn't going to be something that comes up anyway. But then there are additional things they've mentioned, such as they want some kind of evidence of contributing to UK society through volunteering and we have no idea what that's pragmatically going to look like yet. When we do, we obviously will make sure to update our clients as possible, but there are still quite a few unknowns, but the broad strokes are longer and more expensive.”

Joe Glavina: “Turning to the practical steps that HR can take to reassure staff and protect workforce stability. There’s a role for HR with communication isn’t there?”

Alex Wright: “Yes, I mean, understandably, it's not just our clients who've been in touch, it’s a lot of the workers who we have been helping with their applications who have been in touch and are understandably concerned about these policy changes and whether or not they're going to affect them. I think the thing to remember at the moment is we do not have the full information, and the government has not made any detailed policy announcement on exactly how this is going to work. Based on their time frame and when they've stated consultations are going to happen, we can reasonably expect this in the early part of next year, but nothing immediate. So I would say it's just important for firms to be communicating with their colleagues, that they are aware of this, that they are in touch with their legal advisers, that they will make them aware when there's anything to make them aware of, but for the meanwhile, it's going to be status quo. What firms can do to prepare as well, though, is have a think about the expenses that are going to be taken into account in the future if there is going to be longer term visa strategy. There would be no harm in planning to see what a 10-year scenario would look like and what that would cost and if the situation ends up being better than we thought, then maybe they can revise those costs down. Another thing to be aware of, just a minor point, is the Home Office are also going to be increasing the English language requirement for skilled workers coming into the UK. They are only increasing it slightly, but that may mean whether we see a small amount of people failing and having to reset tests which will have additional costs. The Home Office have also mentioned that people bringing in their partners for the first time under the Skilled Worker route, are going to have to have their partners do a lower-level English language test. So if an employer is providing support for partners, then they also need to factor the time in for them to sit and pass those tests and, again, any associated costs if they are going to be helping out with those.”

The article by the Immigration Team which looks in detail at those changes to the Skilled Worker route which Alex talked about, as well as the other key changes which have been brought in, is called ‘How tightened immigration rules could impact UK companies in 2026’. It’s available now from the Out-Law website and we’ve included a link to it in the transcript of this programme for you.

- Link to Out-Law analysis article: 'How tightened immigration rules could impact UK companies in 2026.’