The new-entrant salary rate for Skilled Worker visas, explained

Key points

• The Home Office tables already show the 70% figure for each occupation code, with the £33,400 floor applied.
• gov.uk says you can count as a new entrant if you are under 26, if you are on a Student visa at bachelor's level or above or a Graduate visa (or held one in the last 2 years and it was your most recent visa, a visit visa aside), or if you are working towards a professional qualification or registration.
• The 4-year limit is in paragraph SW 12.3 of the Immigration Rules. It counts Graduate visa time, so it is not 4 years on top of a Graduate visa.
• Health and education jobs paid on national pay scales follow the scale, and the new-entrant discount does not apply to them.

Who counts as a new entrant?

gov.uk lists the situations in which you can be paid 70% of the going rate. The detailed wording is in the Immigration Rules, Appendix Skilled Worker, paragraph SW 12.2. In summary:

The Student category has a timing detail in the rules: you need to have completed the course, or be applying no more than 3 months before you are expected to complete it (PhD students have a separate condition). If you are not sure which category, if any, fits you, gov.uk and a regulated immigration adviser are the places to check.

How is the new-entrant salary worked out?

A new entrant’s salary has to clear two bars at once, and the higher one counts:

1. 70% of the going rate for the occupation code.
2. The new-entrant floor of £33,400 a year.

Compare that with an experienced hire, whose salary usually has to be at least the going rate and the general threshold of £41,700, whichever is higher. The Home Office tables already show the 70% figure for each code, with the floor applied.

Only guaranteed basic pay counts. The rules (paragraph SW 14.2) leave out things like overtime, bonuses, allowances and one-off payments. The rates are annual and assume a 37.5-hour week, so a different number of hours changes the figure.

Worked examples for three common graduate jobs

Here are the Home Office figures for three occupation codes that many international graduates are offered:

• Software developer (code 2134). An experienced hire needs at least £54,700. A new entrant needs at least £38,300, because 70% of the going rate is above the floor.
• Accountant (code 2421). An experienced hire needs at least £49,200. A new entrant needs at least £34,500.
• Mechanical engineer (code 2122). An experienced hire needs at least £46,800. Here 70% of the going rate would fall below the floor, so a new entrant needs £33,400.

The salary thresholds guide shows the same table for more codes, and each role page shows the rates for its own codes. The salary check does the comparison for any code.

How long can you be paid the new-entrant rate?

There is a time limit. gov.uk says your total stay in the UK cannot be more than 4 years if you apply as a new entrant, and that this includes any time you have already spent on a Graduate visa. The rules (paragraph SW 12.3) put it as combined permission as a Skilled Worker, Graduate and Tier 2 migrant of no more than 4 years in total.

Two things follow from the published rule:

• Graduate visa time counts. The 4 years are not 4 years of Skilled Worker permission on top of your Graduate visa.
• The lower rate is for the start of a career. Once the limit is reached, a later application, for example to extend, has to meet one of the other salary options. gov.uk sets out what applies when you extend.

How this works out for you depends on your own dates, so check gov.uk or a regulated adviser rather than a general guide. The Graduate visa guide explains how long a Graduate visa lasts for different application dates.

Do health and education jobs have new-entrant rates?

Not in the same way. For health and education occupations whose going rate comes from a national pay scale, such as nurses, doctors and teachers, gov.uk says different salary rules apply: the salary has to meet the national pay scale rate for the job. In the Immigration Rules, the new-entrant option (paragraph SW 12.1) works from the single going rates in the occupation tables, so it does not reduce a pay-scale rate. Many of these jobs also qualify for the Health and Care Worker visa. The NHS visa sponsorship guide covers that route.

Is the new-entrant floor still the old figure?

No. The floor and the general threshold both rose when the rules changed on 22 July 2025, and some websites still quote the older figures. The figures in this guide come from gov.uk today: a new-entrant floor of £33,400 and a general threshold of £41,700. The salary thresholds guide has a dated record of what changed.

Who decides whether you count?

You do not choose to be a new entrant on your own. The employer decides the salary and the occupation code, and records them on your Certificate of Sponsorship. The Home Office then decides your application against the rules. So if an offer is close to the new-entrant rate, it is reasonable to ask the employer which code the job will use. Our Certificate of Sponsorship guide lists the questions people ask after an offer.

How Visavi uses these numbers

Every job in Visavi shows its salary against the threshold, including the £33,400 new-entrant floor, so you can see before you apply whether the advertised pay can work for a Skilled Worker visa. It is a signal, not a decision: the employer chooses the code, and the Home Office decides the application.