Graduate and Student Switching

Key Takeaways

• What you are allowed to do for work on a Student visa depends on who sponsors you as well as what you are studying. At some sponsors no paid work is permitted at all, whatever the course level.
• The Graduate route needs no sponsor, no job offer, no salary, no English test and no proof of savings. It cannot be extended and it cannot be granted twice.
• Graduate permission runs for 3 years for a PhD or other doctoral qualification, 2 years where the application is made before 1 January 2027, and 18 months where it is made on or after that date.
• Once you have applied for a Skilled Worker visa you can start a permanent full-time job up to 3 months before your course completion date, which is earlier than most people realise.
• Time on the Graduate route does not count towards settlement, so the five-year clock starts when your Skilled Worker permission starts, not when you finished your degree.
• Our Graduate visa service and Skilled Worker visa service cover the whole path, from checking whether a job qualifies to submitting the switch.

Introduction

This page is for anyone already in the UK on a Student visa or the Graduate route who wants to work here, and for anyone deciding what to do when a course or a Graduate visa is coming to an end. It starts from permission you already hold, so it covers work rights, the Graduate route and every way out of both. It does not cover how to get a Student visa in the first place.

The rules in this area are unusually easy to get wrong, because two things that sound the same are treated very differently. What you may do while studying is governed by your course and your sponsor. What you may do afterwards is governed by which route you move on to. Getting the order right saves a refusal.

What You Can and Cannot Do on a Student Visa

A Student visa is granted with three standing conditions: no access to public funds, no work except as the rules allow, and no study except as the rules allow. The work condition is the one that catches people out, because it is not a single national rule. It is a grid. The conditions themselves are set out in Appendix Student and summarised in the GOV.UK Student visa guide.

How Many Hours You Can Work in Term Time

Your permitted hours depend on the level of your course and on the type of sponsor that assigned your Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies. Both have to line up. A degree-level course at a sponsor that is not a higher education provider with a track record of compliance carries no work rights at all.

Two permissions sit outside that grid and apply whatever your row says. You may do work that forms an assessed, integral part of your course as a work placement, and you may hold an elected Student Union Sabbatical Officer post or an elected National Union of Students position for up to 2 years, where your Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies was assigned for that purpose.

Part-time study deserves a note of its own. You can only study part-time if the course is above degree level at a higher education provider with a track record of compliance, and part-time students have no work rights and cannot bring dependants. The trade-off is rarely explained before someone enrols.

Working Full Time Outside Term Time and After Your Course Ends

If you have work rights, full-time work is permitted outside term time. That includes vacations and, importantly, the period before your course starts. It also includes the period after you have completed your course, because any permission you still hold after completion is treated as being outside term time.

How long that after-course window lasts depends on the length of the course, and it is granted automatically on top of the course dates rather than applied for.

The widely repeated claim that every student gets four months at the end is only true of courses of 12 months or longer. On a short course it can be a week. Check your own visa dates rather than the general figure, because that window is usually the time you have to arrange a switch.

Work That Is Not Allowed

Four things are off limits on the Student route, regardless of how many hours you are permitted:

• Self-employment and business activity. There is one exception, covered below.
• Work as a professional sportsperson, including as a sports coach. Amateur sport is fine, and there is a narrow carve-out where a sports scholarship requires you to play or coach at amateur level for your own sponsor or for British Universities and Colleges Sport, on a course at degree level or above at a higher education provider.
• Work as an entertainer.
• Filling a permanent full-time vacancy, other than as a Sabbatical Officer or where the pending-application rule below applies.

Business activity has a specific meaning here, and it is wider than running a company. You are treated as engaging in business activity if you set up as a sole trader or in a partnership that is trading or establishing a trading presence, if you are employed by a company in which you hold 10% or more of the shares, including shares held in trust for you, or if you work for a company in which you also hold a statutory role such as director. The 10% test is 10% or more, not more than 10%.

The single exception is for founders. A Student may be self-employed where they have applied on the Innovator Founder route, the application is supported by an endorsement from an endorsing body, it was made while they held Student permission, and no decision has been made or any Administrative Review against a refusal has not been finally determined. Our guidance on Self-Sponsorship and Founder Routes covers that route in full, and we have a longer piece on starting a business as an international student.

Voluntary Work, Volunteering and the Hours Cap

Voluntary work and volunteering are not the same thing in immigration terms, and the difference decides whether your hours are counted. A voluntary worker usually has contractual obligations, attends at set times and carries out specific tasks, and is often rewarded in kind. A volunteer has no contract, is not a substitute for an employee, and is not doing unpaid work.

Voluntary work counts towards your weekly limit. If you are permitted 20 hours a week and you work 15 paid hours, you may do no more than 5 hours of voluntary work. If your course and sponsor give you no work rights, you cannot do voluntary work either. Volunteering for a charity or a public sector organisation is always allowed.

How Long a Work Placement Can Be

A work placement must be assessed as an integral part of your course. The length limit is not a single figure. Below degree level, a placement must not be longer than one third of the total length of the course. At degree level or above, at a higher education provider with a track record of compliance, at an overseas higher education institution in the UK, or as part of a qualification recognised at UK bachelor degree level or above on a study abroad programme, it must not be longer than half the course. There is an exception where a longer placement is a statutory requirement, and your sponsor has to justify that on the Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies.

Starting a Job Before Your Student Visa Runs Out

This is the most valuable rule on the page and the one most often missed. A Student who has made a valid application for permission to stay on the Skilled Worker or Graduate route may start work in a full-time permanent vacancy before their Student permission would otherwise allow it.

The Three-Month Early Start for Skilled Worker Applicants

If you have applied to switch to a Skilled Worker visa, you may start a permanent full-time job from up to 3 months before your course completion date. Three conditions have to be met. You must be studying a full-time course at degree level or above with a higher education provider that has a track record of compliance, the Skilled Worker application must have been made while you still held Student permission, and the application must be undecided, or any Administrative Review against a refusal must not have been finally determined.

That last condition matters more than it looks. The permission to start early hangs on the application still being live. It is not a general right to begin work three months before graduation.

Starting Work Once You Have Applied for the Graduate Route

The equivalent rule for the Graduate route is later. A Student with a pending Graduate application may take up a permanent full-time job once they have successfully completed their course of study, not three months before it. The same three conditions about course level, sponsor type and the application being live apply.

What Happens to Your Permission While You Wait

If you apply before your current permission expires, your existing conditions continue while the application is decided. That is what keeps you lawfully in the UK and lawfully working, and it is why an in-time application matters so much more than a well-prepared late one. A Graduate decision usually takes up to 8 weeks and a Skilled Worker decision from inside the UK usually takes up to 8 weeks as well, so the gap is real and you should not plan to travel through it.

The Graduate Route Explained

The Graduate route lets you stay in the UK to work, or look for work, at almost any skill level, without a sponsor. It replaced the Doctorate Extension Scheme, which closed on 1 July 2021, and it is the route most international students move on to. Its great strength is flexibility. Its great weakness is that it ends, and it does not lead to settlement.

Who Qualifies

• You must be in the UK, and you must have, or last have had, permission as a Student.
• You must not have previously been granted permission under the Doctorate Extension Scheme or as a Graduate. There is no second bite and no extension.
• Your last Student sponsor must be a higher education provider with a track record of compliance, and it must have told the Home Office that you successfully completed your course before you apply. This is the step students cannot do for themselves, and chasing it is worth doing early.
• You must hold a UK bachelor degree, a UK postgraduate degree, or one of the listed professional qualifications.
• You must have studied in the UK for the required minimum period: the full course where it lasts 12 months or less, and at least 12 months where the course is longer.
• If you held a government or international agency scholarship covering both fees and living costs within the 12 months before you apply, you need that body to consent in writing.

The listed professional qualifications are worth spelling out, because holders often assume they are excluded. They are a law conversion course validated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Legal Practice Course in England and Wales, the Solicitors Course in Northern Ireland, the Diploma in Professional Legal Practice in Scotland, the Bar Practice Course or Bar Course, a Postgraduate Certificate in Education or Postgraduate Diploma in Education, and a professional course at bachelor degree level or above in a profession regulated by UK law.

How Long the Graduate Route Lasts

The length of the grant runs from the date of decision and depends on your qualification and on when you apply.

The 1 January 2027 line is drawn at the date of application, not the date you graduate or the date a decision is made. A bachelor or master graduate who applies on 31 December 2026 receives 2 years. The same person applying a day later receives 18 months. Doctoral qualifications are unaffected and stay at 3 years. If your course finishes close to that boundary, the date your sponsor reports your completion becomes the thing that decides how long you get, so it is worth pressing them on it.

We cover the practical side of a Graduate visa running out, including what to do in the final months, in our guide on what to do before your Graduate visa expires.

What You Can and Cannot Do on the Graduate Route

The conditions are far wider than the Student route. Work is permitted, including self-employment and voluntary work, in almost any job at almost any skill level, with no minimum salary and no sponsor. You can be a company director and hold shares. The exception is work as a professional sportsperson.

You cannot access public funds. Study is permitted, but not study with an education provider that is a Student sponsor where the course would meet the approved qualification and level of study requirements of the Student route, so you cannot use the Graduate route to do another sponsored degree. Where the Academic Technology Approval Scheme applies, you need a valid ATAS certificate. Full detail sits in Appendix Graduate and the GOV.UK Graduate visa guide.

What the Graduate Route Costs

Add the two payable items together before you decide. A two-year grant means the fee plus two years of surcharge in a single up-front payment, which is the part that surprises people. Our visa fee and surcharge calculator works out the total, and our guidance on Visa Fees and Sponsorship Costs sets out the wider picture.

Bringing Your Partner and Children

The Graduate route is not a way to bring family to the UK for the first time. You can only include people who already have a connection to your Student permission, or children born here. There are four qualifying cases:

• Someone who has, or last had, permission as your dependent partner while you were a Student, where you are now applying for or have been granted Graduate permission.
• A child who has, or last had, permission as your dependent child, or as the dependent child of your dependent partner, on the same basis.
• A child born in the UK during your last grant of Student permission.
• A child born in the UK to someone who already holds Graduate permission to stay.

A partner who was not already your dependant as a Student cannot be added. Dependant permission ends on the same date as yours, and for a child it ends when whichever parent’s permission ends first, so a dependant application late in the grant buys very little time for the money.

Why the Graduate Route Does Not Lead to Settlement

The Graduate route is not a route to settlement, and this is the most expensive misunderstanding on the whole topic. Settlement as a Skilled Worker needs a continuous period of 5 years in the UK with permission on a qualifying route. The qualifying routes are Skilled Worker, Global Talent, Innovator Founder, T2 Minister of Religion, International Sportsperson, Representative of an Overseas Business, Scale-up and most Tier 1 categories. Neither Student nor Graduate permission is on that list.

In practice, someone who studies for three years, spends two years on the Graduate route and then switches to a Skilled Worker visa has been in the UK for five years and is at the start of the settlement clock, not the end of it. Our guidance on Indefinite Leave to Remain and Settlement sets out the qualifying period in full, and our ILR eligibility calculator will date it for you.

Switching from a Student Visa to a Skilled Worker Visa

Switching straight from Student to Skilled Worker skips the Graduate route entirely, and for anyone who already has a graduate-level job offer it is usually the better move, because every month counts towards settlement. It is also the harder application, because the Skilled Worker requirements all have to be met at once.

When You Are Allowed to Apply

You must be in the UK on the date of application, and if you hold or last held Student permission you must meet one of three conditions:

• Condition A. You have completed the course of study for which your Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies was assigned.
• Condition B. You are studying a full-time course at degree level or above with a higher education provider that has a track record of compliance, and your Certificate of Sponsorship has a start date no earlier than your course completion date.
• Condition C. You are studying a full-time course leading to a PhD with a higher education provider that has a track record of compliance, and your Certificate of Sponsorship has a start date no earlier than 24 months after that course started.

Condition B is the one worth understanding. It lets you apply before you finish, provided the job itself does not start until the course is done. Read together with the early start rule above, that means you can apply while still studying, begin work up to 3 months before your completion date, and have a Certificate of Sponsorship whose formal start date sits on or after completion. The two rules are compatible but the paperwork has to reflect both.

Separately, there are routes you cannot switch to Skilled Worker from at all: Visitor, Short-term student, Parent of a Child Student, Seasonal Worker, Domestic Worker in a Private Household, and permission held outside the Immigration Rules. Student and Graduate are not among them.

Finding a Job That Qualifies

This is where most graduate switches fail, and the reason is a change of skill level. Since 22 July 2025 the Skilled Worker route is a degree-level route. The job must sit in an eligible occupation code assessed at Regulated Qualifications Framework level 6 or above.

Codes at RQF level 3 to 5 are only available in three situations: the job is on the Immigration Salary List, the job is on the Temporary Shortage List and the Certificate of Sponsorship was issued before 31 December 2026, or the worker was granted Skilled Worker permission under the rules in place before 22 July 2025 and has held continuous Skilled Worker permission since. A new graduate cannot rely on that third situation, because they were never on the route before.

So the practical test for a graduate is simple. Is the role genuinely a graduate-level role in an eligible code, and does the employer hold a sponsor licence? Our guide on how to check the RQF level for any UK job walks through the first question, the register of licensed sponsors answers the second, and our sponsored job eligibility checker will do both quickly.

The employer also has to be licensed before they can assign anything. If your prospective employer does not hold a licence, our guidance on Sponsor Licence: How to Apply is the page to send them.

Salary and the New Entrant Discount

Skilled Worker salary works on two figures at once. You must meet a general threshold and a going rate for your occupation code, and you must meet the higher of them. The general option asks for at least £41,700 a year and the full going rate, which is out of reach for many first jobs. Three of the other options help graduates directly.

The new entrant option is the one most graduates use, and it is generous. You qualify if any one of the following applies:

• You are under 26 on the date of application.
• The job is a postdoctoral position in one of the listed science, research or higher education occupation codes.
• The job is in a UK regulated profession and you are working towards a recognised UK professional qualification for it.
• You are working towards full registration or chartered status with the relevant professional body for the job.
• Your most recent permission, disregarding any as a visitor, was as a Student; that permission has either not expired or expired less than 2 years ago; you were sponsored to study a UK bachelor degree, UK master degree, UK PhD or other doctoral qualification, a Postgraduate Certificate in Education or a Professional Graduate Diploma of Education, and not merely an equivalent-level qualification; and you have completed that course, are applying no more than 3 months before you are expected to complete it, or are studying for a PhD on which you have completed at least 12 months of study in the UK.
• Your most recent permission, disregarding any as a visitor, was as a Graduate, and if it has expired it expired less than 2 years ago.

Note how narrow the study-based route is. It is not a general rule about anyone who holds a recent UK degree. Your most recent permission has to have been as a Student, and the qualification has to be one of the named ones rather than something assessed as equivalent. Our guidance on Skilled Worker: Eligibility and Salary sets out the going rates and how they are pro-rated.

English Language and Money in the Bank

Skilled Worker needs English at level B2 in all four components: reading, writing, speaking and listening. If you hold a bachelor degree, master degree or doctorate awarded in the UK, that qualification meets the requirement and you do not need a test. Having already shown English at the level required in a previous successful application also counts. For most people reading this page, the English requirement is already satisfied by the degree they came here to do.

The financial requirement is often satisfied too. If you are applying for permission to stay and you have been in the UK with permission for 12 months or longer on the date of application, you meet it without showing any funds. Otherwise you need £1,270 held for 28 days, or your A-rated sponsor can certify that it will maintain and accommodate you to at least that amount for your first month.

What It Costs and How Long It Takes

A decision from inside the UK usually takes up to 8 weeks, and from outside the UK usually around 3 weeks. The GOV.UK Skilled Worker visa guide carries the current processing times and the fee table. There is a full walkthrough of the application itself in our guide to switching to a Skilled Worker visa, and in our guidance on Skilled Worker: Apply, Switch and Extend.

Switching from the Graduate Route to a Skilled Worker Visa

Almost everyone on the Graduate route eventually faces this switch, because the route cannot be extended. The good news is that several requirements are already behind you. The catch is that the two that matter most are not.

What Is Easier, and What Is Not

• English is done. Your UK degree meets the B2 requirement.
• Savings are usually done. Twelve months or more of UK permission means no funds to evidence.
• New entrant status carries over. Graduate permission that has not expired, or expired less than 2 years ago, makes you a new entrant in its own right.
• The job is not easier. It still has to be in an eligible occupation code at RQF level 6 or above, with a licensed sponsor willing to assign a Certificate of Sponsorship.
• The salary is not easier. You still have to clear the general threshold and the going rate for the code.

Our detailed walkthrough of this exact switch, including the documents and the common refusal points, is our full guide to switching from a Graduate visa to a Skilled Worker visa.

The Four-Year New Entrant Limit

There is a cap that very few people see coming. Granting a new entrant application must not mean your combined permission as a Skilled Worker, a Graduate and a Tier 2 Migrant would exceed 4 years in total, whether or not that permission is continuous.

Work the arithmetic through. Someone who uses a full 2 years on the Graduate route and then switches as a new entrant can be granted at most 2 more years at the discounted salary. At that point they must move onto a standard salary option, which for most roles means the general threshold and the full going rate. Under the 18-month grant applying from 1 January 2027, the same person keeps a little more new entrant headroom, which is a genuine if small consolation.

The planning point is straightforward. If you know you want to stay long term, the Graduate route is a cushion, not free time. Every month on it is a month off both your new entrant allowance and your settlement clock.

Timing It Before Your Graduate Permission Ends

Apply before your Graduate permission expires. An in-time application keeps your existing conditions running while a decision is made, so you stay lawfully in the UK and can keep working. A late application does not, and overstaying is treated seriously in the suitability rules.

Work backwards from your expiry date. An employer that does not yet hold a sponsor licence needs months, not weeks. An employer that holds one still has to assign a Certificate of Sponsorship, and the decision itself usually takes up to 8 weeks from inside the UK. Starting three months out is comfortable. Starting three weeks out is not.

Other Routes Open to Students and Graduates

Skilled Worker is the most common next step but it is not the only one, and for some people it is the wrong one. The table below is a starting point, not a decision.

Scale-up is worth a word, because it is often described as the flexible alternative for graduates. You are tied to the sponsored job for the first 6 months of the grant and free after that, which is genuinely attractive. But the salary floor of £39,100 is close to the standard Skilled Worker threshold, so the route is not the bargain it is sometimes presented as, and relatively few employers hold a Scale-up licence. Our Scale-up visa service can check whether an employer qualifies.

If your next step is your own business rather than a job, the founder routes are covered properly in our guidance on Self-Sponsorship and Founder Routes, and our Innovator Founder visa service handles endorsement. If your field is health or social care, see our guidance on Care Worker and Health Routes and our Health and Care visa service.

Work Conditions Once You Are Sponsored

A Skilled Worker visa is more restrictive than the Graduate route in one respect that catches people out. Your permission is tied to a specific job with a specific sponsor, and extra work sits inside defined limits.

There is no cap on overtime in your sponsored job. Beyond that, supplementary employment is permitted for up to 20 hours a week, outside the hours you are contracted to work for your sponsor, and only while you are still doing the sponsored job. The second job must be on the Immigration Salary List, or in an eligible occupation code, or in the same profession at the same professional level as your sponsored role. Self-employment and running your own company count as employment for this purpose and are subject to the same limits.

If you want to work more than 20 hours a week in a second job, you need a Certificate of Sponsorship from that second employer and an application to update your visa. Our supplementary work checker tests a specific second job, and our guidance on Skilled Worker: Job Loss and Second Jobs covers the whole subject, including what happens if your sponsor loses its licence.

Settlement After Studying in the UK

Settlement as a Skilled Worker needs a continuous period of 5 years in the UK on a qualifying route, together with the continuous residence requirement, the Life in the UK test, and a sponsor that is still licensed and confirms it still needs you at the required salary. For settlement applications made on or after 26 March 2027 you will also need to show English at level B2 in speaking and listening, unless an exemption applies.

Because neither Student nor Graduate permission qualifies, the clock starts on the first day of your Skilled Worker permission. Plan on that basis and nothing about settlement will come as a surprise. Our ILR eligibility calculator will give you the date.

Detailed Guides on This Topic

These guides go further on particular questions and are kept up to date alongside this page:

• Switching from a Graduate visa to a Skilled Worker visa: full guide
• Graduate visa expiring: what you must do before the clock runs out
• Can international students start a business in the UK?
• Switching to a UK Skilled Worker visa: full application guide
• How to check the RQF level for any UK job

How Can WorkPermitCloud Help?

Most problems on this path are timing problems rather than eligibility problems. A completion notification that arrives late, a Certificate of Sponsorship with the wrong start date, a job that turns out to sit in an ineligible occupation code, or a Graduate application submitted a day after permission expired. All of those are avoidable, and all of them are expensive.

We advise students, graduates and their employers on which route fits, whether a specific job qualifies, how to time an application around a course completion date, and how to keep working lawfully while a decision is pending. For employers new to sponsorship we handle the licence as well, so a graduate offer does not fall through for want of one. Start with our Graduate visa service, our Student visa service or our Skilled Worker visa service.

Conclusion

The path from a Student visa to long-term status in the UK is well trodden, but it rewards people who understand two things early. The first is that your work rights while studying depend on your sponsor as much as your course, so the general advice you hear from other students may not apply to you. The second is that the Graduate route, for all its freedom, is a pause rather than a step, because it does not count towards settlement and it cannot be repeated.

Whether you switch straight into a Skilled Worker visa or take the Graduate route first is a decision about timing and risk, not about status. Make it with your expiry dates, your occupation code and your settlement clock in front of you, and the rest of the process is largely administrative.

Glossary