New Entrant Skilled Worker Visa: The Salary Discount for Graduates and Under-26s

The standard UK Skilled Worker visa salary threshold is £41,700 per year — or the occupation-specific going rate if it is higher. For many early-career professionals, those numbers make UK employment look out of reach. The New Entrant route is the policy mechanism that changes that calculation, and it is significantly underused because neither applicants nor employers are consistently aware of it.

What the New Entrant Route Is

The New Entrant route is a salary discount built into the Skilled Worker visa's tradeable points framework (Option E under the Immigration Rules). It reduces the required salary to £33,400 per year, or 70% of the occupation-specific going rate — whichever is higher.

The practical effect: an employer does not need to offer a graduate-level salary to sponsor a junior worker. For roles with a going rate below approximately £59,572, the 70% figure is below the standard £41,700, subject to the £33,400 floor.

Example: A data analyst role has a going rate of £40,000. Under the standard threshold, the employer needs to pay at least £41,700. Under the New Entrant discount, the minimum drops to £33,400 (70% of £40,000 is £28,000, which is below the £33,400 hard floor, so the floor applies). The employer can sponsor the candidate at £33,400 instead.

For a software developer role with a going rate of £54,700: the standard minimum is £54,700. The New Entrant discount applies at 70% of £54,700 = £38,290. The employer can pay £38,290 instead of £54,700 — a reduction of over £16,000 per year.

Who Qualifies

You qualify for the New Entrant discount if you meet any one of the following criteria at the time you apply:

Under 26 years old: You must be under 26 on the date you submit your Skilled Worker application. Age is assessed at application date, not start date.

Recent UK graduate: A recent UK graduate may qualify where the current Student or Graduate switching conditions are met. Check the course-completion and CoS start-date rules before relying on this category.

Switching from a Graduate visa: If your most recent permission was as a Graduate and you are switching to Skilled Worker, you may qualify subject to the current New Entrant conditions. The Graduate visa was created as a bridge route, and the New Entrant discount can make the salary transition manageable.

Switching from a Student visa to Skilled Worker: If your most recent permission was as a Student, you may qualify where the current Student-route course-completion and CoS start-date conditions are met.

The Four-Year Cap

This is the most important limitation and the one most applicants discover too late.

The New Entrant treatment is available for a cumulative maximum of four years under the route rules. The calculation can include relevant Graduate, Skilled Worker, and Tier 2 permission, so check the current rules before planning an extension.

If you use the New Entrant discount for a two-year Skilled Worker grant and then apply for an extension, the remaining availability depends on the cumulative period counted under the current rules. Once the four-year cap is reached, you cannot use the New Entrant discount again and must meet another applicable salary option or the standard threshold.

What this means for planning: The four-year calculation is cumulative and can include relevant Graduate, Skilled Worker, and Tier 2 permission. Do not assume a three-year Skilled Worker grant can follow a two-year Graduate visa under the discount; check the remaining period before applying.

If your career trajectory means your salary will naturally hit the going rate within a few years, this is not a concern. If you are in a field where early-career salaries remain below the going rate for longer, the four-year cap can become a constraint at extension time.

How to Use the New Entrant Route to Persuade Employers

Many UK employers who have the Sponsor Licence infrastructure in place still decline to sponsor junior candidates, citing cost concerns. The New Entrant discount changes the argument.

A large employer sponsoring a standard worker on a five-year visa faces a statutory cost of £7,125 (£525 CoS fee + £6,600 Immigration Skills Charge). This does not change under the New Entrant route. What does change is the salary obligation: the employer can sponsor a New Entrant at a junior market salary rather than needing to pay the full going rate.

For a software developer, the going rate of £54,700 can price out smaller employers even when they want to hire internationally. The New Entrant minimum of £38,290 brings the role into a range that many more employers can viably offer.

The practical approach: if you are a graduate on a Graduate visa approaching expiry, research the going rate for your target SOC code, calculate 70% of that figure, and verify whether any employer you are talking to would be willing to offer at or above that minimum. Then present the New Entrant rules directly — not as a request but as a reference to Home Office policy. Many HR teams simply do not know this mechanism exists.

The Transition Out of New Entrant Status

When the New Entrant discount period ends, your next extension application will be assessed against the standard threshold. If your salary has grown with you naturally, this is not an issue. If it has not, you need to either negotiate a raise before submitting the extension or risk a refusal for not meeting the threshold.

At the ILR (settlement) stage, use the salary threshold applicable to the settlement route, including any qualifying transitional protection. Do not assume the New Entrant discount carries over; check the live ILR requirements for your SOC code and first-CoS date.

The UK Skilled Worker Visa Guide includes a New Entrant salary calculator, the email template for presenting the New Entrant rules to employers who are unfamiliar with the discount, and a four-year planning chart to track when you will need to transition to the full threshold.

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