Skilled Worker: Apply, Switch and Extend

Key Takeaways

• Which application you make depends on where you are and what is changing: entry clearance from outside the UK, a switch from another visa, an extension with the same employer, or a change of employment when you move to a new employer or a new occupation code.
• Your certificate of sponsorship (CoS) must have been assigned no more than 3 months before you apply, and you cannot apply more than 3 months before the start date on it.
• A new sponsor must be A-rated on the Home Office register. The only exception is staying with the sponsor from your last Skilled Worker permission.
• If you change employer, you can keep working in your current job, or work out your notice, while you wait. You must not start the new job until the application is granted.
• You can only have one application in progress. A second application does not run alongside the first. It replaces it, and the first is no longer considered.
• If you were first granted Skilled Worker permission before 4 April 2024 or before 22 July 2025, and have held it continuously since, lower salary or skill level rules can still apply when you extend or change job.
• WorkPermitCloud's Skilled Worker visa service checks which application you need, times it against your certificate and your current permission, and prepares it with you.

Introduction

This page is for anyone applying for a Skilled Worker visa from outside the UK, switching into the route from another visa, extending it, or changing job or employer while holding it. It explains which application you need, what every application has to show, how the process works and what can go wrong while you wait for a decision.

Whether your job qualifies and how much you must be paid are covered in our guidance on Skilled Worker: Eligibility and Salary. This page assumes the job itself is eligible and deals with the application.

Which Application You Need

There are four kinds of Skilled Worker application, plus a fifth for a second sponsored job. The right one depends on where you are when you apply and what is changing. An application of the wrong kind, or one made without a new certificate where a new certificate is needed, will be rejected or refused, and you may lose time you do not have.

Some changes need no application at all. They are listed under Changing Job or Employer below. A second sponsored job is covered in full in Skilled Worker: Job Loss and Second Jobs, which also explains what happens if you lose your job and how long you have to act.

What Every Skilled Worker Application Needs

Whichever application you make, the Home Office checks the same things in the same order: first whether the application is valid, then whether you are suitable, then whether you meet the eligibility requirements. The points below apply to every Skilled Worker application. The sections after this one add what is specific to applying from abroad, switching, extending and changing job.

You must be 18 or over on the date you apply. If a government or international scholarship agency has paid both your fees and your living costs for study in the UK in the 12 months before you apply, you need its written consent.

A Licensed Sponsor and a Valid Certificate of Sponsorship

Your employer must hold a sponsor licence covering the Skilled Worker route. It must also be A-rated on the Home Office's register of licensed sponsors, unless your last permission was as a Skilled Worker and you are staying with the same sponsor. A B-rated sponsor cannot sponsor you for a new job, however genuine the offer. Check the rating before you resign from anything, either on the register or with our sponsor licence status check.

Your sponsor assigns you a certificate of sponsorship, an electronic record with a reference number that you enter on your application. It confirms your name, the job, the salary and the PAYE details where tax is paid through PAYE. Three rules about the certificate decide whether your application can succeed:

• It must have been assigned to you no more than 3 months before the date you apply. If it was assigned earlier, the application can be rejected without being considered.
• The start date on it must be no more than 3 months after the date you apply.
• It must not have been used in an earlier application that was granted or refused. A certificate used in an application that was rejected as invalid, void or withdrawn can be used again.

If your sponsor issued your certificate through the Home Office's Sponsor a Worker system, it is linked to a Sponsorship Reference Number and the first limit is 90 days rather than 3 months, not counting any days while an edit your sponsor asked for is being reviewed. Your sponsor will know which system it used. Everything else about certificates, including how sponsors obtain and assign them, is in our guidance on the Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS).

An Eligible Job and Salary

For a certificate of sponsorship assigned on or after 22 July 2025, your job must normally be skilled to RQF level 6, which is graduate level. You do not need a degree yourself. What matters is which table of Appendix Skilled Occupations lists your job's occupation code. A job below graduate level can only be sponsored through the Immigration Salary List, the Temporary Shortage List, the transitional provision for people granted Skilled Worker permission before 22 July 2025, or the in-country provision for prison service officers. Our RQF level 6 jobs list shows the graduate-level occupations.

For most applicants the salary must be at least £41,700 a year or the going rate for the occupation code, whichever is higher. Lower thresholds apply in defined cases, and workers granted Skilled Worker permission under the rules in place before 4 April 2024, who have held it continuously since, can use a £31,300 threshold and lower going rates for applications made before 4 April 2030. Skilled Worker: Eligibility and Salary sets out every option and who qualifies for it.

English Language

You must show English at level B2 in reading, writing, speaking and listening. That level applies to initial grants of Skilled Worker permission made on or after 8 January 2026. If your most recent permission was as a Skilled Worker and was granted at B1, B1 is still enough when you apply again on the route, because the rule looks at that most recent grant. That covers an extension and a change of employment. A switch from another visa is a fresh initial grant, so B2 applies. Our guidance on English Language Requirements explains the ways of proving your level and who is exempt.

Money to Support Yourself

If you are applying from outside the UK, or you have been in the UK with permission for less than 12 months, you must show that you have held at least £1,270 for 28 days in a row, with day 28 falling within 31 days of the date you apply. You do not need to show this if your sponsor is A-rated and certifies on your certificate that it will, if necessary, maintain and accommodate you up to the end of your first month of employment, to at least £1,270. If you have been in the UK with permission for 12 months or more when you apply, you meet the requirement automatically. Partners and children need their own funds, set out in Dependants and Family.

A Genuine Job

The Home Office will not award the sponsorship points if there are reasonable grounds to believe the job does not exist, is a sham, or was created mainly so that you could get a visa. The job also cannot be a placement filling a position at a third party, or contract work providing an ongoing routine service to a third party. It must comply with the National Minimum Wage Regulations and the Working Time Regulations.

You must also genuinely intend to do the job, be able to do it, and not intend to work in any other job except as your visa conditions allow. How the Home Office tests this is explained under Home Office Interviews and Credibility Checks below.

Your Immigration History

Every application is assessed against Part Suitability of the Immigration Rules. Deception in an application, such as a false document or a false statement, must lead to refusal. False information can also lead to refusal where it was given by someone else, such as an agent, and whether or not you knew about it, so check everything that is submitted in your name.

If you are applying from inside the UK, you must not be in breach of immigration laws or on immigration bail. The main exception is an application made within 14 days of your permission expiring, where there was a good reason beyond your control, explained in or with the application, why you could not apply in time. Do not plan around that exception. Apply before your permission ends.

Applying from Outside the UK

If you are coming to the UK to work, you must obtain entry clearance as a Skilled Worker before you travel. You apply online on the "Skilled Worker visa" form, using the Defined CoS your sponsor applied for, and you can apply up to 3 months before the start date on it.

Tuberculosis Test and Criminal Record Certificate

If you have been living for more than 6 months, immediately before you apply, in a country listed in Appendix Tuberculosis, you need a certificate from an approved clinic confirming you do not have active pulmonary tuberculosis.

If your job is in one of the health, education, social care and welfare occupation codes listed in paragraph SW 16.1 of Appendix Skilled Worker, you also need a criminal record certificate. That list covers, among others, doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, paramedics, therapists, teachers, teaching assistants, social workers, childcare workers, care workers and senior care workers. You need a certificate from each country where you have been present for 12 months or more, in total or in one stretch, in the 10 years before you apply, while aged 18 or over. If it is not reasonably practicable to get one from a particular country, you must give a satisfactory explanation why. A criminal record certificate is only needed for an application from outside the UK. You do not need one to switch, extend or change job inside the UK.

Nationals of Afghanistan

A national or citizen of Afghanistan cannot be granted entry clearance as a Skilled Worker where the application is made from outside the UK on or after 26 March 2026. A valid certificate of sponsorship does not change that. The restriction applies to the passport you apply on, so a dual national applying on another nationality's passport is considered in the normal way. It does not apply to applications made inside the UK: an Afghan national already here with permission can switch or extend if they meet the requirements.

Getting a Decision

You prove your identity either with the UK Immigration: ID Check app or at a visa application centre, and you will be told which when you apply. A decision is usually made within 3 weeks of your identity being verified, and you may be offered a faster service. If you are granted, your entry clearance starts on the date of the decision or on a later date you asked for, and it ends 14 days after the end date on your certificate. A successful application gives you an eVisa, not a sticker in your passport. How to access it and travel with it is covered in eVisa and Digital Status.

Switching to a Skilled Worker Visa from Inside the UK

Switching means applying for Skilled Worker permission without leaving the UK. You must be in the UK on the date you apply, you must apply before your current permission expires, and you must not travel outside the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man until you have a decision.

Who Cannot Switch

You cannot switch to a Skilled Worker visa from inside the UK if you have, or were last granted, permission as:

• a Visitor
• a Short-term student
• a Parent of a Child Student
• a Seasonal Worker
• a Domestic Worker in a Private Household
• permission outside the Immigration Rules, for example on compassionate grounds

You also cannot switch while on immigration bail. Permission granted by Jersey, Guernsey or the Isle of Man, such as a work permit there, cannot be used to switch either. In each of these cases you must leave and apply for entry clearance from outside the UK, Ireland and the Crown Dependencies.

Which Jobs You Can Switch Into

Switching is limited to a graduate-level job in Table 1, 2 or 3 of Appendix Skilled Occupations, a job on the Immigration Salary List or the Temporary Shortage List, or a prison service officer job under the in-country provision. The transitional provision that keeps jobs below graduate level open only helps people who already hold Skilled Worker permission granted before 22 July 2025, so it cannot help someone switching in from another visa.

Students and Graduates

If you are, or were last, on a Student visa, you must meet one of three conditions on the date you apply. You have completed the course your CAS was for; or you are on a full-time degree-level course at a higher education provider with a track record of compliance and the start date on your certificate is no earlier than your course completion date; or you are on a full-time PhD at such a provider and the start date on your certificate is at least 24 months after your course started. The Graduate route has no such conditions. Time on the Graduate route does not count towards the five years for settlement. Both routes, and the new entrant salary rate that many graduates can use, are covered in Graduate and Student Switching.

Care Workers

Care workers and senior care workers switching into the route must meet extra conditions, including three months' legal work for the sponsor in the role before the certificate is issued. These are covered in Care Worker and Health Routes.

What Else Changes When You Switch

If you have been in the UK with permission for less than 12 months, you must show the £1,270 or have it certified by your sponsor. You will need B2 English. Your partner and children do not switch automatically. They can apply with you or at any time before their own permission expires, but if you are switching into a job below graduate level, on the Immigration Salary List or the Temporary Shortage List, or as a care worker, they can only switch in as your dependants in the limited cases set out in Dependants and Family.

Extending a Skilled Worker Visa

You extend when your permission is coming to an end and you are staying with the employer who assigned your current certificate, in the same job or a different job in the same occupation code. There is no limit on the number of times you can extend while you still meet the requirements.

When to Apply

Your employer assigns a new certificate for the extension, and the start date on it should be the day after your current permission ends. You cannot apply more than 3 months before that start date, so in practice you can apply up to 3 months before your permission expires. You must apply before it expires. Provided you do, you can carry on working in the same job, or a job in the same occupation code, while the application is decided.

Ask your employer about the extension well before the 3-month window opens. If it has no Undefined certificates left in its allocation, it has to ask the Home Office for more. That request is usually decided within 12 weeks, or within 5 working days if the sponsor pays for the priority service, and the Home Office may ask the sponsor for evidence before approving it. A worker who raises the extension a few weeks before expiry can run out of time for reasons that have nothing to do with their own application.

Which Rules Apply to You

An extension is assessed under the rules in force when you apply, including current going rates, which are reviewed and updated. Three groups keep older rules if their Skilled Worker permission has been continuous:

• Workers granted Skilled Worker permission under the rules in place before 22 July 2025 can extend in a job below graduate level in Table 1a, 2aa or 3a.
• Workers granted Skilled Worker permission under the rules in place before 4 April 2024 can use the £31,300 threshold and the lower Table 2 going rates for applications made before 4 April 2030.
• Former Tier 2 (General) workers can count guaranteed allowances such as London weighting with the same sponsor, and some research and higher education roles keep fixed going rates, for applications made before 1 December 2026.

The detail, and what "continuous" means, is in Skilled Worker: Eligibility and Salary. English stays at B1 if your most recent Skilled Worker grant was at B1.

If the Delay Is Not Yours

If the end date on your certificate has passed by the time your extension is decided, because of Home Office delays or because your sponsor's licence was suspended and then reinstated, the Home Office may exceptionally grant 14 days' permission to stay so that you can make a further application or leave without becoming an overstayer.

If you are close to five years on the route, extend first if your permission will run out before you qualify for settlement. Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) and Settlement explains when you can apply.

Changing Job or Employer

A Skilled Worker visa is tied to a job, an occupation code and a sponsor. Some changes need a new application before you start the new role. Others only need your employer to report them. Getting the difference right protects both your status and your time towards settlement.

When You Need a New Application

A job in a code listed as medium skilled, below graduate level, is only open to you on a change of employment if you were first granted Skilled Worker permission before 22 July 2025 and have held it continuously since. The lower salary rules for people first granted before 4 April 2024 carry across to a new employer in the same way.

Pay Cuts and Other Changes to Your Job

A pay cut does not need a new application if you would still meet the salary requirement under the same option you were granted on. Nor does pay that stops or falls during an absence of less than 4 weeks in a calendar year, or during a longer absence for a listed reason such as maternity, paternity, shared parental or adoption leave, sick leave, or jury service. A temporary cut in hours for a phased return to work, supported by an occupational health assessment, is also allowed if your hourly pay does not fall below the rate your permission was granted on. Any other cut that takes you below the salary your permission requires is a ground for your permission to be cancelled, unless a new certificate and a successful application come first. What your sponsor must report, and when, is in Sponsor Licence: Compliance and Duties.

Timing, Notice Periods and Starting the New Job

You can apply for a change of employment up to 3 months before the start date on the new certificate. While it is being decided, and provided you applied before your permission expired, you can keep working in your current job for your current sponsor, or work out a contractual notice period for a job you were lawfully doing on the date you applied.

You must not start the new job until the application is granted. That applies even if the new job is with the same sponsor. Your new employer must also carry out a right to work check before you start, which is explained in Right to Work Checks. Starting early is working in breach of your conditions, which puts your permission and your future applications at risk, and puts the new employer's licence at risk too.

A change of employment is considered in the same way as a first application: a new certificate, and every suitability and eligibility requirement met again. The new sponsor must be A-rated. You only need to show funds again if you have been in the UK for less than 12 months.

If you are looking for a new sponsor, our sponsored job eligibility check is a quick first step.

If a Better Offer Arrives While You Are Waiting

A new offer while another application is pending is where people most often go wrong, because only one application can be considered at a time. The rule is explained under While Your Application Is Pending below. Read it before you apply again.

If You Have Lost Your Job

Losing your job is not a change of employment. Your sponsor stops sponsoring you, and the Home Office will normally cut your permission short, leaving you a limited time to find a new sponsor, switch or leave. Skilled Worker: Job Loss and Second Jobs sets out the time limits and your options, and our guide to what to do after losing your job on a Skilled Worker visa works through the next steps.

The Application Process

Every Skilled Worker application is made online. You can save the form and come back to it.

Timing: The Certificate of Sponsorship Clocks

If your employer assigns the certificate too early, you can be caught between the first two clocks. A certificate assigned in January with an August start date runs out in April, before you are allowed to apply. Ask your employer to time the certificate to your start date.

Proving Your Identity

Depending on your nationality and your identity document, you either use the UK Immigration: ID Check app, which also creates or signs you into a UKVI account, or give your fingerprints and photo at an appointment: a UK Visa and Citizenship Application Services (UKVCAS) service point if you are in the UK, or a visa application centre if you are abroad. You are told which when you apply. There is no fee for giving fingerprints and a photo in the UK.

Documents

You will need:

• your certificate of sponsorship reference number
• a valid passport or other document showing your identity and nationality
• proof of your English level, unless you are exempt or have already shown it at the level required
• your job title, annual salary and occupation code, and your employer's name and sponsor licence number, all of which are on your certificate

Depending on your circumstances, you may also need:

• bank statements showing your funds, unless your sponsor certifies maintenance or you have been in the UK with permission for 12 months
• proof of your relationship with a partner or child applying with you
• a tuberculosis certificate or a criminal record certificate, for an application from outside the UK
• an ATAS certificate, if your employer tells you your job involves research in a sensitive subject at PhD level or above
• your UK PhD certificate, or an Ecctis reference number for a qualification from outside the UK, if you are relying on a PhD for salary points

Any document not in English or Welsh needs a certified translation.

Fees and the Immigration Health Surcharge

The visa application fee is £819 for a certificate of 3 years or less, or £1,618 for more than 3 years, if you apply from outside the UK, and £943 or £1,865 if you apply from inside it. Each dependant pays the same fee again. A job on the Immigration Salary List, or a Health and Care Worker visa, costs less. The Immigration Health Surcharge is £1,035 a year for most applicants, paid for the whole period of permission. The full fee table, the refund rules and what an employer may and may not pay are in Visa Fees and Sponsorship Costs, and our visa fee and IHS calculator totals the cost for you and your family.

Decision Times and Faster Decisions

The processing time starts once you have verified your identity in the app or attended your appointment, not when you submit the form. Current standards are published on GOV.UK's visa processing times page, and the faster services on its faster decision page. Neither faster service is guaranteed: a decision can take longer if the Home Office needs more information or has to make checks.

While Your Application Is Pending

Four rules apply between submitting an application and getting a decision. None of them is obvious, and each can cost you the application.

Your Permission Continues

If you applied from inside the UK before your permission expired, your permission continues on the same conditions until the application is decided, and while any administrative review made in time is decided. This is known as section 3C leave. An employer checking your right to work during this period uses the Home Office's Employer Checking Service, which is explained in Right to Work Checks.

Do Not Travel Outside the Common Travel Area

If you leave the UK, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man before your application is decided, it is treated as withdrawn on the day you leave. You lose the application and the fee, and if your permission has already expired you lose the protection that the pending application gave you.

One Application at a Time

You can only have one application in progress. Under paragraph 34BB of Part 1 of the Immigration Rules, if you make a second application while the first is still undecided, the second is treated as a variation of the first. Only the most recent application is considered, and it is decided under the rules in force on the day you made it. The Home Office will write to tell you the earlier application has been varied.

Suppose you applied to extend with your current employer, and a few weeks later a better offer arrives from another sponsor. You cannot make a change of employment application and let both run, keeping the extension as a fallback. The change of employment application replaces the extension. If it is refused, there is nothing left pending, and you are relying on whatever permission you have left.

Two points follow. The new application must meet every validity requirement in its own right, including a valid certificate from the new sponsor. And for the purpose of being in time, it takes the date of the application it replaced. If more than one later application has been made and it is not clear which you want decided, the Home Office will ask, and if you do not confirm within 14 days the most recent is considered. Before you apply again, be certain the new job is the one you want decided.

Requests for Information and Holds

The Home Office may ask you for more information or documents. What it asks for must reach it within 10 working days, or the application can be refused on what it already has. If a caseworker has concerns about whether a job is genuine, your application can be put on hold while the Home Office checks your sponsor, sometimes with a compliance visit. You will be told the application is on hold, though not why.

Cancelling an Application

You can ask to cancel an application. The fee is refunded only if processing has not started, which in practice means before you have given your fingerprints and photo or confirmed and uploaded your documents in the app.

Home Office Interviews and Credibility Checks

The Home Office must be satisfied that you genuinely intend to do the job on your certificate and are able to do it. Most applications are decided on the papers. Further checks are not routine, and are used where a caseworker has reason for doubt: for example where a sponsor has assigned unusually large numbers of certificates for the same type of role, where there are reasonable grounds to suspect you will not do the job described, or where intelligence links applicants to illegal activity.

When checks are made, the caseworker can ask for more evidence or invite you to an interview. They consider:

• your knowledge of the role
• your relevant experience of the skills the job needs
• your knowledge of your sponsor in the UK
• how you were recruited
• anything else relevant

If you fail to attend an interview, or to provide information, without a reasonable excuse, your application can be refused for that reason alone. Where a caseworker suspects you knowingly took part in a vacancy that is not genuine, they must put the concerns to you clearly and give you a chance to respond, in an interview or in writing, before deciding. A finding that you were complicit goes into the refusal and can affect future applications.

The best preparation is knowing your own application. Read your certificate before the interview: the job title, duties, salary, hours and work location. Be able to explain what your employer does, how you found the job and why your experience fits it. Answers that contradict the certificate, or that sound memorised, are the commonest reason interviews go badly. Our guide to Skilled Worker visa interviews covers the questions caseworkers ask and how applicants with a sudden change of career can prepare.

If Your Application Is Refused

There is no right of appeal against a Skilled Worker refusal, whether you applied from inside or outside the UK. If you think the caseworker made an error, you can apply for administrative review under Appendix Skilled Worker paragraph SW 17.2. It costs £80 and has firm deadlines, counted from the date you receive the decision:

Administrative review corrects caseworking errors. It is not a chance to add evidence that should have been sent with the application. If you applied in time from inside the UK, your permission continues while a review made in time is decided. Our administrative review service can assess whether a refusal is worth challenging.

You can also make a fresh application at any time. There is no waiting period in the Rules, but the new application must deal with the reason for the refusal and meet the rules in force on the day you make it. If your permission has already run out, the only protection is the 14-day exception described under Your Immigration History above.

Your Partner and Children

Your partner and children make their own applications. They can apply with you, using a family linking code to connect the applications, or at any time before their own permission expires. If they do not apply when you extend or change job, their existing permission stays valid until its original end date, so check when that is. A child who has turned 18 while in the UK as your dependant can still extend as your dependant. Each family member pays the application fee for the same length of permission as you, even if they apply later.

Whether they can join or stay with you at all depends on your job. A partner or child can only be your dependant if you are sponsored in a graduate-level job, unless an exception applies, so a job below graduate level, including one on the Immigration Salary List or the Temporary Shortage List, does not allow dependants for most people. Because a dependant's application depends on yours, applying together keeps everyone's permission on the same dates and avoids a partner's permission running out on a different day from yours. The full rules are in Dependants and Family, and our dependant visa service can handle the family's applications.

After Your Visa Is Granted

Your permission runs until 14 days after the end date on your certificate, which can be up to 5 years after its start date. General practitioner specialty trainees get 4 months instead of 14 days.

The conditions of your permission are:

• no access to public funds
• work only in the job you are sponsored for, except for supplementary employment, voluntary work, and working out a notice period for a job you held lawfully when you applied
• study is allowed, subject to the Academic Technology Approval Scheme where it applies

Supplementary employment means up to 20 hours a week in an eligible job outside your sponsored hours. The limits are in Skilled Worker: Job Loss and Second Jobs, and our additional work check tells you quickly whether a second job is allowed.

You will get an eVisa, which you access through your UKVI account and use to prove your right to work and, in England, your right to rent. Keep your contact details up to date in the account, because that is where the Home Office will reach you. After five years on the route you may be able to settle, which is covered in Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) and Settlement.

Detailed Guides on This Topic

These articles go further into individual parts of this page:

• Skilled Worker visa interviews: why the Home Office interviews applicants, what it asks and how to prepare.
• RQF level 6 jobs list for the Skilled Worker visa: the graduate-level occupation codes and their going rates.
• What to do after losing your job on a Skilled Worker visa: the next steps and deadlines after redundancy or dismissal.

How Can WorkPermitCloud Help?

WorkPermitCloud is a Legal and HR-tech company specialising in UK business immigration. We start by working out which application you need, because that is where many problems begin: an extension that should have been a change of employment, a second application that wipes out the first, or a certificate assigned months too early. We check your sponsor's rating, your certificate and your dates, confirm whether a transitional provision still protects you, and prepare the application with you through our Skilled Worker visa service. If an application has been refused, we can assess whether administrative review or a fresh application is the better route.

Conclusion

Most Skilled Worker applications that go wrong do so for reasons that have little to do with the job: the wrong kind of application, a certificate outside its time limits, a sponsor that is not A-rated, a new job started too soon, a trip abroad while waiting, or a second application that replaced the first. Work out which application you need, check your sponsor and your dates, apply before your permission ends, and stay put until you have a decision. Whether the job and salary qualify is the other half of the picture, and that is covered in Skilled Worker: Eligibility and Salary.

Glossary