Key takeaways
Government tightens skilled worker visa rules
Higher language and skill thresholds aim to cut migration sharply.
Temporary shortage list replaces ISL
Fewer roles, stricter alignment with workforce strategies ahead.
Visa caps and sector restrictions loom
Health and Care recruitment faces major limitations on overseas hires.
The Home Secretary appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee on 3 June 2025, offering fresh insight into the government’s evolving of the UK’s immigration strategy. The session highlighted a clear shift to reducing reliance on overseas labour and pressing employers and sectors to engage more deeply with the domestic workforce.
Key takeaways
The Home Secretary believes that raising the English language and skill level requirements for Skilled Worker visas, alongside scrapping the Health and Care visa for overseas workers, would reduce net migration by 100,000 people annually. This would mark a significant contraction in one of the UK’s largest visa routes.
The Immigration Salary List (ISL) also came under scrutiny. It currently allows employers to pay a 20% reduced ‘going rate’ for certain roles, a practice the Home Secretary criticised as giving overseas hires an artificial cost advantage over domestic workers, particularly in the Health and Care sector.
Though we know (from the recently published Immigration White Paper) that the ISL will be replaced by a new Temporary Shortage List, which will be substantially shorter. Though the ISL currently contains 23 roles, the Home Secretary oddly claimed the new list would be “180 roles shorter,” suggesting the figure refers to job titles nested within broader occupation codes. Importantly, any occupations added to the new list must now be aligned with a workforce strategy agreed upon by a new inter-agency group involving the Home Office, the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
This signals a move towards a more strategic and time bound use of migration, although there is currently no clear definition of what “temporary” means in this context. However, each job on the list will come with an associated training timeline, which could influence how long it remains eligible for UK visa sponsorship.
Further, the Home Office may begin capping the number of visas available per role annually, introducing tighter controls over UK migration even within shortage areas. Construction roles are expected to be included on the Temporary Shortage List, but access to international recruitment for the Health and Care sector is being severely tightened: employers will only be able to recruit foreign workers already present in the UK with valid visas.
Tension between policy and practicality
The Home Secretary was questioned on the potential for “skill gap cliff edges” if roles are removed from sponsorship schemes too quickly. In response she promised that future workforce strategies would mitigate disruption, although no operational detail was provided.
Notably absent from the discussion was any mention of the controversial proposal to extend the qualifying period for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) from 5 to 10 years. A measure many expected to be addressed.
Summary
While the Home Office’s direction is clear, reduction of migration and a push for domestic skills development, the practical roadmap still remains vague. There’s strong ideological messaging reducing “convenience migration” especially in sectors where domestic labour inactivity is high. However, any realignment of workforce incentives and training infrastructure is likely to take time.
As the plans develop, they remain ambitious but short on operational detail. It remains to be seen whether the shift from immigration to training can happen without disrupting key sectors on a long-term basis.
