Imminent changes to the Immigration Rules to impact care providers

The Home Office recently announced changes to the Immigration Rules that will impact care providers in the UK.

The first set of changes apply to care providers in England only. From 9th April 2025, English care providers must demonstrate efforts to recruit from the existing pool of sponsored care workers within the UK before turning to overseas recruitment. Emphasis is now placed on prioritising care workers and senior care workers already residing in England without sponsorship before exploring alternative immigration routes or international hires.

According to the Labour Government, this policy change aims to combat exploitation within the adult care sector by focusing on international care workers already in the UK. Recently, there has been an increase in sponsor license revocations within the sector, with hundreds of licences revoked, leaving thousands of sponsored workers in a precarious position.

In addition to the plans to protect care workers in England, further changes are afoot that will impact the sector across the UK. The minimum salary threshold for care workers sponsored under the skilled worker route will increase to £12.82 per hour (from £11.90) or £25,000 per annum (from £23,200). These changes will apply to sponsored workers assigned a certificate of sponsorship on or after 9th April 2025. The increase will significantly impact recruitment budgets within the care sector in Scotland. In particular, these come at a time when care providers, particularly those in rural areas, are reportedly struggling with recruitment issues associated with workforce shortages, financial pressures, and housing challenges. These difficulties will be further exacerbated by the divergence in the planned increase to the hourly rate that the Scottish Government will provide to local authorities delivering direct care in commissioned services from April 2025, which is less than the new Home Office minimum salary.

These changes reflect Labour’s growing efforts to reduce dependence on overseas workers, with the hopes of subsequently lowering net migration to the UK. They do not however address the current issues faced by the sector in attracting the local workforce into jobs in care.

Certificates of sponsorship assigned by employers before 9th April 2025 will not be affected by the above changes. To this end, employers should note that the Sponsor Management System will be unavailable from 18:00 on 8th April 2025 until 09:30 on 9th April 2025 whilst the Home Office carries out maintenance to their Sponsorship IT systems.

Should you require advice and assistance in relation to these changes, or any other immigration matter, please get in touch with a member of our immigration team.