Skilled Worker visa salary threshold: the figure your job must reach
Your guaranteed basic pay must reach £41,700 a year and the going rate of your occupation code, adjusted to your weekly hours. Enter your code, salary and hours to test both.
Test your salary against both thresholds
Minimum salary for this job
£41,700
Your salary is £700 below the threshold.
| Points option A | £41,700 floor |
| Going rate (full time) | £41,200 |
| Going rate per hour | £21.13 |
| Your pay per hour | £21.03 |
| Visa fee, up to 3 years (outside the UK) | £819 |
| Health surcharge, 3 years | £3,105 |
Higher skilled occupation (Table 1): eligible.
Threshold in each situation
| Standard rate | £41,700 |
| New entrant (under 26, recent student or graduate, in training) | £33,400 |
| PhD in a STEM subject relevant to the job | £33,400 |
| PhD in another subject relevant to the job | £37,500 |
Calculated in your browser: nothing you type is sent anywhere. Not legal advice; not affiliated with the Home Office.
Published by Radif Partners · How we calculate · Home Office fees of 8 October 2026, rules checked 13 October 2026
The Skilled Worker salary threshold is two tests applied together. The first is a fixed floor of £41,700 a year, which never moves with your hours. The second is the going rate of your four-digit occupation code, printed in Appendix Skilled Occupations for a 37.5-hour week and scaled up or down to the hours written on your certificate of sponsorship. Your threshold is whichever of the two is higher. Pay only counts if it is guaranteed basic gross pay: overtime, shift premiums, bonuses, allowances and benefits in kind are left out, and pay for hours beyond 48 a week is ignored. Since Statement of Changes HC 1691, the required pay must also arrive in every pay period rather than only across the year. An IT tester (code 2136) on £41,000 misses the floor by £700 even though the going rate is lower; a financial manager (code 1131) on 42 hours needs £84,112. The checker above runs both tests on your figures.
Floor or going rate: which one binds
For a first application in a standard job, Appendix Skilled Worker (option A) asks for a salary that equals or exceeds both £41,700 per year and the going rate for the occupation code. Neither figure is optional, so the one that bites depends on your code. In 26 of the 91 higher skilled codes the going rate sits below £41,700, which means the fixed floor decides. In the others the going rate is the real hurdle.
Two examples show the difference. An IT quality and testing professional (code 2136) has a going rate of £41,200. Offered £41,000 for a 37.5-hour week, the worker clears the going rate but not the floor, so the application fails by £700. A statistician or actuary (code 2433) offered £53,000 clears the floor comfortably but falls £2,100 short of the going rate of £55,100. Same rule, opposite reasons.
| Code and job | Hours | Salary offered | Threshold | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2136 IT quality and testing professionals | 37.5 | £41,000 | £41,700 | Short by £700 |
| 2136 IT quality and testing professionals | 30 | £41,000 | £41,700 | Short by £700 |
| 2433 Actuaries, economists and statisticians | 37.5 | £53,000 | £55,100 | Short by £2,100 |
| 1131 Financial managers and directors | 42 | £82,000 | £84,112 | Short by £2,112 |
| 2161 Research and development (R&D) managers | 52 | £64,000 | £75,435 | Short by £16,358 |
Hours change the going rate, not the floor
Going rates assume 37.5 hours a week. Rule SW 14.4 multiplies the printed rate by your weekly hours divided by 37.5. Work 30 hours as a tester and the going rate drops to £32,960, but the £41,700 floor stays whole, so part-time jobs rarely pass on the standard rate. Work 42 hours as a financial manager (going rate £75,100) and the target climbs to £84,112.
Long rotas meet a second rule. Under SW 14.3 only the pay for the first 48 hours a week counts towards the threshold, yet SW 14.4(d) still pro-rates the going rate on every hour you work. An R&D manager (code 2161) on £64,000 for 52 hours is treated as earning £59,077, against a going rate stretched to £75,435. Contracts with uneven weeks can average the hours over a cycle of up to 17 weeks, unpaid rest weeks included.
Paid in every pay period, not just by December
HC 1691 added rule SW 14.3B. Your pay in each pay period must cover the going rate for every hour worked in that period. On monthly pay, any three-month stretch must bring in at least a quarter of the annual threshold; on weekly or fortnightly pay, any 12 weeks must reach 12/52 of it. Irregular patterns are tested over 17 weeks. The Home Office explained the change as a way to spot underpayment without waiting a full year, so an annual figure topped up by a December payment no longer saves a thin month.
What counts as salary and what does not
SW 14.1 counts guaranteed basic gross pay before tax, including your own pension and National Insurance contributions, plus guaranteed payments treated exactly like basic pay for tax, pension and National Insurance. SW 14.2 then excludes a long list:
- pay that cannot be guaranteed because the hours fluctuate;
- shift, overtime and bonus pay, even when guaranteed;
- the employer's pension and National Insurance contributions;
- allowances for accommodation or cost of living;
- benefits in kind such as shares, health insurance, school fees, company cars or food;
- one-off sums such as golden hellos, payments towards visa costs or the health charge, and business expenses.
Money you pay back to the sponsor, such as salary deductions or loan repayments, is subtracted and averaged over the sponsorship period, unless it is a genuine optional benefit like salary sacrifice. Lower thresholds exist for new entrants, relevant PhDs, postdoctoral posts and Immigration Salary List jobs: see the new entrant rate, the PhD discount and the Immigration Salary List. The rules are in Appendix Skilled Worker and the rates in Appendix Skilled Occupations.