Table Of Contents:
- What is the UK Health and Care Worker Visa
- Eligibility
- Changes to the Health and Care Visa from July 2025
- Transitional Arrangement to the UK Health Care Visa
- Summary
The Health and Care Visa is for international healthcare professionals who are seeking to work in the UK’s healthcare sector.
UK healthcare employers consistently face staffing shortages. The Health and Care visa offers them a recruitment lifeline. For applicants, on the other hand, the benefits of the UK Health Care Visa include fast-tracked entry to the UK, reduced visa fees, and exemption from the Immigration Health Surcharge. Applicants also get the support of a dedicated UKVI application processing team.
Importantly, the UK health and care worker visa route is subject to frequent change, for example, changes in role eligibility and salary thresholds. So, it is important for workers and employers to ensure they comply with the immigration rules that apply at the time of the application, or risk delays and refusals.
What is the UK Health and Care Worker Visa?
The UK Health Care visa is effectively a sub-category of the Skilled Worker route. It specifically allows foreign medical professionals to come to or stay in the UK to work in an eligible job role with the NHS (National Health Service), an NHS supplier, or in adult social care.
The visa is designed to cater to the skills shortages within the UK healthcare sector by offering foreign nationals an attractive route to come to the UK for work, with the possibility of settling in the UK permanently.
You can work in the UK for a period of up to five years if your application is successful, and you can also apply for an extension of your existing healthcare visa as many times as you want, provided you meet the eligibility criteria.
Please note that care workers are no longer eligible to make new applications under the Health and Care Worker visa, as this option closed to them on 22 July 2025. However, if you were sponsored before 22 July 2025 or you meet specific transitional criteria, such as you have worked for your sponsor for three or more months, you may still be able to apply to extend your existing visa or switch to another visa until 22 July 2028.
Eligibility
You can only apply for the Health and Care visa if you will be taking up a job offer in a role as specified in Appendix Skilled Occupations at the time you make the application.
Here are the eligibility requirements for a UK health care visa.
1. An Eligible Job Requirement
You will only be able to qualify for a Health and Care Worker visa if you:
- Are a qualified doctor, nurse, health professional, or adult social care professional
- Will work in an eligible job in the UK health or social care sector
- Will work for a licensed UK employer
- Have a confirmed job offer and a CoS (Certificate of Sponsorship) from your UK employer, which lists the information about the role your sponsor has offered you in the UK
- Are being paid a minimum salary depending on the type of work you do
2. Salary Requirements
You’ll usually need to be paid an annual salary of at least £31,300, or the lower ‘going rate’ for your job, whichever is higher. However, if your job is on the ISL (immigration salary list, the ISL will be abolished at the end of 2026), you need to be paid at least £25,000 or your job’s full going rate, whichever is higher.
Each occupation has a 4-digit unique code and its own annual lower going rate. You can check your job’s lower going rate in the going rates table.
3. Skill Level Requirement
If you apply on or after 22 July 2025, your job role must be at RQF Level 6 (graduate level) or above. This skill threshold covers various job roles such as doctors, nurses, pharmacists, allied health professionals, and most clinical managers.
Transitional arrangements are available that allow extensions for roles sponsored before 22 July 2025 at RQF 3-5 (below graduate level).
4. Maintenance Requirement
If you are applying for a UK health care visa from overseas, you must prove that you can support yourself financially in the UK. For this, you need to show that you have had £1,270 or more in your bank account for at least 28 consecutive days.
You will be exempt from this requirement if you are applying from within the UK and have been in the UK on a valid visa for 12 or more months, or if your sponsor will cover your expenses for the first month up to £1,270.
5. Knowledge of English
Unless you have proved your knowledge of English in a previous successful visa application, you must prove it when you apply for a UK health and care worker visa. You must prove to the UKVI that you can understand, speak, read, and write English to at least CEFR Level B1.
You do not need to prove your knowledge of English if you’re a national of one of the specified countries or territories.
Changes to the Health and Care Visa from July 2025
First, the UK government published an immigration white paper on 12 May 2025, setting out several reforms affecting the Health and Care Worker visa. This was soon followed by Home Office Statements of Changes HC 997 to the Immigration Rules, implementing specific changes.
1. Closure of Care and Senior Care Worker
As per the new rules, the new CoS for Care Worker (occupation code 6135) and Senior Care Worker (occupation code 6136) has been closed from 22 July 2025. This means care workers and senior care workers under these occupation codes can no longer apply under the UK Health and Care visa. On the other hand, employers will also no longer be permitted to sponsor new international care workers under this route.
2. Increase in Skill Threshold
The skill threshold for Skilled Worker visas has also increased from RQF Level 3 (A-level equivalent) to RQF Level 6 (graduate level) from 22 July 2025. This means you cannot apply for roles below this level under this route (such as care worker roles, which are RQF 3), unless your occupation is on the Immigration Salary List (ISL) or newly launched Temporary Shortage List (TSL).
Transitional Arrangement to the UK Health Care Visa
Care providers may continue to assign a Certificate of Sponsorship to a worker who is already in the UK and has been on their payroll for at least three months, up to 22 July 2028. This is possible if the worker is being sponsored in the same SOC code by the same sponsor for whom they have worked for 3 or more months before the worker is assigned the CoS, and the application must be for leave to remain in the UK, not entry clearance.
Finally, no new dependants can accompany care workers during the transition period 2025-2028. However, existing dependants retain their permission provided they already held valid leave at the point of the rule change or were granted under transitional rules.
Summary
The UK Health Care Visa is a specific category within the UK’s points-based immigration system designed to attract foreign medical professionals to work in eligible roles in the UK.
This visa is open to workers in specified healthcare roles for an authorised sponsor with an eligible job offer. The role must normally be at RQF 6 (graduate level) and appear in Appendix Skilled Occupations. Medium skill occupation codes are allowed only for in-country existing visa extensions issued before 22 July 2025.
New overseas applications for care workers and senior care workers in SOC codes 6135/6136 were closed on 22 July 2025. Only during the transition period up to 22 July 2028, in-country extensions to remain are possible, provided certain conditions are met.
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