UK Migration Advisory Committee recommends restricting roles for migrant workers

Shara Pledger, an immigration expert with Pinsent Masons, was commenting as the UK's independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) published its latest review recommending that only 28 occupations should be retained on the government's Temporary Shortage List (TSL).

The TSL is the government's mechanism to allow certain mid-skilled occupations to retain time-limited immigration access where they are deemed crucial to the government’s Industrial Strategy or critical infrastructure, are in genuine shortage, and are supported by a credible plan to grow the domestic workforce.

The roll-out of the TSL follows the publication of a government white paper in May 2025, which raised the skills threshold for the Skilled Worker visa route to graduate level. This meant that work visas are now largely restricted to graduate jobs and many mid-skilled occupations lost automatic access to the visa system.

The TSL requires employers to have a workforce strategy in place and be “committed to playing their part in increasing recruitment from the domestic workforce”. Currently, the TSL includes 82 occupations, representing around 10,000 visas per year, but applicants sponsored in this way have less beneficial immigration permission than higher skilled workers, including temporary status with no prospect for settlement and no permitted dependants.

The MAC was asked by the government to carry out a second-stage review of the current TSL, which is due for renewal by 31 December. In its final report published at the end of July, the committee recommended that only 28 out of the 82 occupations originally in scope should be retained on the list for a further 18-month period. Continued access beyond 18 months will depend on demonstrable progress by employers on domestic workforce actions.

The sectors earmarked for retaining immigration access include advanced manufacturing, which include welders, sheet metal workers, engineering and electrical technicians, and boat and ship builders, as well as construction and foundational industries, which include bricklayers, electricians, pipe fitters, roofers, plumbers, carpenters, plasterers, and construction supervisors.

Two of the ‘growth-driving’ sectors identified in the government’s Industrial Strategy are also listed: clean energy, which includes overhead line workers and metal plate workers, and digital and technologies, which includes data analysts, database administrators, and telecoms installers.

For offshore and maritime industries specifically, metal plate workers, smiths and moulders – a key occupation in offshore fabrication and energy transition infrastructure – have also secured 18-month access, as have ship and hovercraft officers. While ship and hovercraft officers represent one of the strongest cases for TSL access due to clear evidence of a shortfall of domestic workers and a well-targeted Jobs Plan, the MAC recommended ongoing monitoring due to the high concentration of visa usage among a small number of firms.

These occupations represented approximately 4,000 visas on average between 2022/23 and 2024/25. The MAC said its recommendations, if accepted by the government, would result in “a relatively small reduction in migration, with limited impact on public finances, growth or business confidence”.

Pledger said the MAC’s recommendations provide “a degree of short-term certainty” for employers in these sectors where access to mid-skilled, overseas workers has become a practical necessity. “The 18-month TSL access granted to 28 occupations is a welcome, if temporary, reprieve, particularly for those businesses that have built workforce models around international recruitment at the sub-degree level,” she said.

The recommendations will be particularly pertinent for construction employers, which have faced challenges in utilising the TSL in practice. The sector's reliance on self-employment, subcontracting, fragmented supply chains and SME structures sits uneasily with the standard employer-employee sponsorship model, and some occupations have visa non-grant rates above 70%.

Pledger said employers in construction should urgently assess whether they can practically operate within the sponsorship system, and the Home Office has been asked to monitor visa use and sponsor behaviour closely.

Some of the sectors removed from the TSL from 31 December include office-based, business, marketing and sales roles, that rely on generic skills more likely to exist within the domestic workforce, and laboratory technicians and quality assurance technician roles in the life sciences sector, which the MAC said would likely to be filled by newly qualified trainees.

Overall, the MAC said no occupations had “provided a strong enough case to merit full three-year TSL access”. To secure an extension to three years, employers and their sector leads must demonstrate clearer links between planned actions and shortage drivers and provide quantified evidence of the expected impact of those actions on domestic workforce supply.

In its report, the MAC stated that it had recommended more occupations for 18-month access in this first round than it expects to do in future reviews. Pledger said employers must treat the 18-month window as a genuine deadline by which to demonstrate material improvement in domestic workforce plans.

Pledger said the recommendations should act as a wake-up call for UK businesses to re-examine their training and employment strategies. “The commercial reality is that the long-term direction of travel is firmly towards reducing reliance on overseas sponsorship in these roles,” she said. “Businesses that act now, investing in apprenticeships, vocational training, and meaningful retention strategies for domestic workers, will be best placed to navigate that transition. Those that do not risk finding themselves without the workforce they need and without the immigration access to compensate."

The government, as part of its overarching ambition to link migration and skills policy more closely, has asked employers to present a credible ‘jobs plan” to help identify relevant “drivers of shortage” and utilise the domestic workforce more effectively.

The MAC has proposed to carry out a focused review of updated jobs plans, which is currently expected to take place around October 2027. Pledger warned that the review was likely to be “unforgiving of sectors that have failed to make tangible progress”.