An employer offers £45,000 a year. The candidate checks the Skilled Worker salary threshold and believes the offer qualifies. During the contract discussion, it becomes clear that the salary covers a longer working week than expected, or includes overtime which the employer has counted towards the total.
Those details can change the assessment. A salary figure needs to be read alongside the hours it covers, the occupation’s going rate and the payments which immigration rules allow to count.
Part-time work can qualify for Skilled Worker sponsorship. However, the general annual salary threshold does not reduce simply because the employee works fewer hours. The occupation’s going rate is adjusted for the working pattern, while overtime and other additional payments have separate restrictions.
Our view is that the calculation should be settled while the offer is still being agreed. The employer and worker should both understand the actual salary, the hours required and the basis on which sponsorship will proceed before relying on the offer for a visa application.
Start with the salary requirement that applies to the worker
For a standard Skilled Worker application, the salary normally needs to meet both the £41,700 annual threshold and the going rate for the occupation. Meeting one requirement does not remove the other. An offer above £41,700 can therefore remain insufficient where the occupation requires more.
Some applicants qualify for different salary options, including qualifying new entrants and workers with relevant PhD qualifications. Certain healthcare and education occupations also have their own arrangements. The correct option needs to be identified before calculating whether a particular offer qualifies.
This matters when comparing offers with colleagues. Two people working similar hours may have different immigration histories or qualify under different salary provisions. A salary which supported one person’s application does not establish that another person can use the same figure.
Ask the employer which occupation code and salary option they intend to use. Those details provide the starting point for a meaningful calculation. Our Skilled Worker visa guidance explains the wider requirements which sit alongside salary.
Can a Skilled Worker be sponsored for part-time work?
Part-time employment is possible. There is no general requirement that every sponsored Skilled Worker must work a 37.5-hour week. That figure is the calculation basis for many published occupation rates.
The difficulty is usually the actual annual pay. The Home Office does not increase a part-time salary to its full-time equivalent when checking the general salary threshold. The worker must receive enough qualifying pay for the hours they will actually work.
For example, a job advertisement might show a salary of £50,000, followed by “pro rata”. If that figure assumes 37.5 hours and the offer is for 30 hours, the actual annual salary would be £40,000. An applicant who needs the standard £41,700 threshold would fall short, even though the headline figure in the advertisement looks comfortably above it.
This is a hypothetical example, but it illustrates a common problem with offer discussions. The figure used to describe a pay band may differ from the amount the worker will receive.
A useful offer should state the actual annual salary for the proposed hours. Where it also gives a full-time equivalent figure, the distinction should be clear enough that recruitment, payroll and the candidate all understand the same arrangement.
How working hours change the occupation’s going rate
Many Skilled Worker going rates are published on the basis of a 37.5-hour week. For those occupations, the rate is adjusted by multiplying the published annual figure by the worker’s weekly hours and dividing by 37.5.
Consider a hypothetical occupation with a full going rate of £45,000 for 37.5 hours. Assume the applicant needs the standard £41,700 threshold and the full going rate, with no salary discount.
| Proposed weekly hours | Going rate adjusted for those hours | Minimum required by these two salary tests |
|---|---|---|
| 30 hours | £36,000 | £41,700 |
| 37.5 hours | £45,000 | £45,000 |
| 40 hours | £48,000 | £48,000 |
At 30 hours, the general threshold is the higher requirement. At 40 hours, the adjusted going rate is higher.
This explains why a salary cannot be assessed properly without its accompanying hours. In this example, an actual salary of £42,000 for 30 hours would meet these two tests. An offer of £46,000 for 40 hours would not.
These figures illustrate the calculation only. They do not establish eligibility for a particular occupation or confirm that an applicant meets the remaining visa requirements.
A shorter working week needs to be genuine
Where a proposed salary falls below the adjusted going rate, reducing the hours may appear to solve the problem. That can be a legitimate commercial decision if the employer genuinely needs a smaller role and the revised arrangement reflects the work expected.
The job should then be designed around those hours. The workload, availability requirements and responsibilities need to make sense within the proposed working pattern.
A contract which records 30 hours while managers expect the employee to perform the same 40-hour role leaves an obvious question about what has actually been agreed. Before accepting that arrangement, the worker should ask how the duties will change and how work outside the agreed hours will be handled.
We recommend resolving those questions with the person responsible for managing the role, as well as the person arranging sponsorship. An immigration calculation can look straightforward while the operational expectations remain unclear.
This is particularly relevant where the contract contains a broad requirement to work additional hours whenever the business needs them. The salary assessment should account for the real arrangement the parties intend to operate.
Which parts of the pay package count?
The starting point is guaranteed basic gross pay, before income tax and including employee pension and National Insurance contributions. Other guaranteed payments can count where they receive exactly the same treatment as basic gross pay for tax, pension and National Insurance purposes.
Additional shift pay, overtime and bonuses are excluded, even if guaranteed. Employer pension contributions, benefits in kind and business expense payments also cannot simply be added to the qualifying salary.
An employer may describe an offer as a £48,000 package because it includes salary, pension contributions and benefits. That description can be useful when comparing employment packages, but it does not identify the salary available for the visa calculation.
Ask for a breakdown. The basic salary should be distinguishable from allowances, benefits, expense reimbursements and additional earnings. Where a payment is being relied upon, its contractual and payroll treatment should be understood.
The same point applies to an allowance described as permanent or guaranteed. Those words alone do not resolve whether it can count. Its treatment under the applicable salary rules still needs examination.
Overtime cannot repair an insufficient basic salary
Suppose an employer offers £39,000 basic pay and expects the worker to earn a further £6,000 through overtime. The anticipated annual earnings are £45,000, but the overtime does not turn the basic salary into £45,000 for the Skilled Worker assessment.
For an applicant who needs the standard £41,700 threshold, that hypothetical arrangement would fail the general threshold before the occupation’s going rate is considered. The answer does not change merely because overtime is regularly available or the employer promises a minimum amount.
There is a separate question about whether the worker may perform overtime. Government guidance confirms that overtime in the sponsored job does not, by itself, require an application to update the visa. Permission to perform the work and permission to count its pay towards the salary requirement are different questions.
For an employer negotiating an offer, the practical issue is therefore the guaranteed qualifying salary attached to the role. A proposal that depends on the worker consistently accepting extra shifts deserves review before sponsorship begins.
Working more than 48 hours creates another calculation
For the general annual salary threshold, normally only pay attributable to the first 48 hours of a working week can count. The going-rate assessment uses the full sponsored weekly hours, including hours above 48.
Take a hypothetical fixed basic salary of £52,000 covering a regular 60-hour week. For the general threshold calculation, the relevant amount would be:
£52,000 ÷ 60 × 48 = £41,600
That falls below the standard £41,700 threshold. The employer cannot rely on the £52,000 headline figure alone. The occupation’s going rate would also require a separate calculation using the full 60 hours.
This is a calculation example, not an assessment that the working arrangement is otherwise lawful. Working-time requirements apply separately. An agreement to opt out of the usual working-time limit, where legally available, does not change the immigration salary calculation.
Longer hours can therefore make an offer harder to assess. They may increase total earnings while also increasing the going rate the employer needs to satisfy.
Regular shift cycles need to be assessed across the pattern
Some jobs operate a repeating cycle with longer working weeks followed by rest weeks. The rules allow hours above 48 in individual weeks to be considered where the average over a regular cycle, no longer than 17 weeks, does not exceed 48 hours. Unpaid rest weeks must be included in that average.
For example, a repeating pattern of 60 hours, 60 hours and a rest week averages 40 hours each week. Looking only at the working weeks would give a misleading picture.
The employer should be able to explain the complete cycle and the basic pay attached to it. A rota, contract and pay schedule are more useful than a general statement that the hours “average out”.
This provision should also be distinguished from an expectation that the worker will accept whatever extra shifts become available. A defined repeating pattern provides something concrete to assess. Uncertain future earnings do not offer the same basis for planning an application.
For workers considering a shift-based offer, ask to see the proposed pattern before comparing the salary with an online threshold.
Lower salary options still require an hours calculation
Qualifying for a lower salary option does not make working hours irrelevant. A new entrant, for example, may qualify under the standard new entrant option with a £33,400 annual threshold and the applicable discounted going rate. The eligibility conditions must also be satisfied.
The published occupation tables include minimum hourly protections. In Tables 1 and 1a, discounted rates cannot fall below the £17.13 hourly floor. It is therefore unsafe to assume that multiplying any occupation’s full rate by 70% will always produce the correct new entrant figure.
The practical approach is to identify the correct published salary column first, then adjust it for the proposed hours and compare it with the applicable annual threshold.
The Home Office advises using the published annual figure when adjusting going rates, rather than reconstructing the calculation from rounded hourly figures. That avoids small rounding differences which can matter when an offer sits close to the requirement.
An employer should be able to explain both why the worker qualifies for the salary option and how the required amount has been calculated.
Healthcare and education jobs may use a different basis
Some listed healthcare and education occupations use national pay scales. The general salary requirement is normally at least £25,000, with the applicable going rate also needing to be met, subject to specific provisions for certain cases. These arrangements apply to specified occupations.
The working-hours basis is not uniform. Relevant medical rates may use a 40-hour week, certain healthcare scales use different hours according to the UK administration, and teaching rates use the relevant definition of full-time employment.
A healthcare employer should therefore check the relevant occupation, pay table, location and working pattern together. Applying the ordinary 37.5-hour formula to every healthcare or teaching offer can produce the wrong result.
For the worker, the offer should make clear which band or scale applies and what the actual salary will be for the proposed hours. A familiar job title or pay-band label is not enough to complete the assessment.
Repayments and payroll arrangements can affect the result
Specified payments from the worker to the sponsor or a related organisation can reduce the salary assessed for immigration purposes. The rules address deductions, loan repayments and investments, with an exception for genuinely optional benefits meeting the stated conditions. Relevant subtractions are averaged over the sponsorship period.
This is why a salary review should include any related repayment agreement. An offer may appear sufficient until a separate financial obligation is taken into account.
The employer and worker should identify what each payment covers and how it will be collected. Our article on who should pay for UK visa sponsorship explains the distinction between different sponsorship expenses and the questions repayment arrangements can raise.
Payment timing also matters. The sponsor guidance applies pay-period checks, including a requirement to meet the going rate for every hour worked in the relevant pay period. A projected annual total should not be treated as permission to leave earlier underpayment unresolved.
Payroll should understand the agreed arrangement from the outset, particularly where the worker follows a variable shift cycle.
Check the offer, contract and sponsorship details together
The most useful review brings the employment documents and salary calculation into one place. Before the application proceeds, the parties should be able to identify:
- The proposed occupation code and salary option.
- The actual guaranteed annual pay for the agreed hours.
- The weekly hours or complete repeating work cycle.
- The relevant going rate and how it has been adjusted.
- Any additional payments, deductions or repayment obligations.
This is a practical preparation list, rather than a claim that every item must be submitted in every application.
The purpose is to uncover inconsistencies while they can still be resolved. A recruiter may have discussed a full-time equivalent figure, the contract may record a different number of hours, and payroll may have understood an allowance to form part of the total. Each person may believe they are working from the same offer.
The Home Office’s compliance guidance provides for examination of employment and payment evidence. Keeping a clear explanation of the arrangement is therefore useful beyond the initial application.
If the proposal concerns an employee who is already sponsored, changing their pay or hours requires a separate review of the existing permission. Our article on salary changes for sponsored workers addresses that situation.
Resolve the salary calculation before committing to the offer
For a worker, an offer may affect decisions about leaving another job, moving home or bringing family to the UK. For an employer, it may determine recruitment costs, staffing and a proposed start date. Both sides benefit from understanding the salary position before those commitments become difficult to unwind.
A clear assessment should explain the required salary for the actual job and hours, which payments count, and whether the proposed arrangement meets the relevant requirements. Where the calculation depends on a lower salary option or an unusual working pattern, the reason should be recorded clearly.
If you are considering a sponsored job offer and need the salary and hours arrangement assessed, Request a Case Assessment. Include the proposed salary, weekly hours, job description and any breakdown of additional payments so the appropriate next step can be considered.
