UK Skilled Worker Visa for Tech Jobs (2026): Salary, Costs, Steps

If you are a software, data or AI professional in India hoping to work in the UK, the route almost always runs through the Skilled Worker visa. You need three things: a job offer from a company the Home Office has licensed to sponsor, a role at graduate level, and a salary that clears two tests at once. For a software developer that second test usually means £54,700 a year, not the £41,700 figure most articles quote.

Below we turn that number into rupees, spread the visa costs over the life of the visa, map tech titles to the codes that set the bar, and show which UK employers say yes to sponsorship in our data. Rules are as of 18 October 2026. It is a summary of the published rules, not legal advice.

Who can get a Skilled Worker visa for a tech job?

The visa is tied to a specific job. You cannot apply first and look for a sponsor later. The Home Office wants to see a confirmed offer from an approved employer, a Certificate of Sponsorship for that role, an eligible occupation, the right salary and proof of English.

Since 22 July 2025 the occupation normally has to be at RQF level 6, which is graduate level. Most software engineering, architecture, product and research roles clear that bar. Some roles that sound technical do not. Data analysts, for example, are classed as medium skilled (occupation code 3544) and can only be sponsored through a specific exception, so a "data" title is not enough on its own.

The employer, not you, picks the occupation code. It has to match the work you will actually do, not the job title on the posting.

What salary do you need in 2026?

This is where most people get caught out. You must earn the higher of two numbers:

• the general threshold of £41,700 a year, and
• the going rate for your occupation.

The rates assume a 37.5-hour week and are pro-rated for other patterns. So a £50,000 software offer fails, even though it is comfortably above £41,700.

There are lower rates, between 70% and 90% of the going rate, but only for specific groups: new entrants to the labour market, people with a relevant PhD and some postdoctoral roles, with a floor of £33,400 (£37,500 for a relevant non-STEM PhD). For a software role that range works out at roughly £38,290 to £49,230. The going-rate table also shows a separate "lower rate" column, £40,000 for software. That column is not open to everyone, and a new applicant cannot simply pick it.

Which occupation code sets the bar for your title?

The code decides the number, so know your likely code before you negotiate. The effective bar is the higher of the going rate and £41,700.

Common titles (the duties decide, not the title)	SOC 2020 code	Going rate	Your effective bar	Per month, approx. in rupees
IT project or programme manager	2131	£58,200	£58,200	₹6.26 lakh
IT product manager, IT manager	2132	£55,000	£55,000	₹5.92 lakh
Data scientist or statistician doing statistical work	2433	£55,100	£55,100	₹5.93 lakh
Solutions architect, systems designer, IT business analyst	2133	£54,900	£54,900	₹5.91 lakh
Software, backend, frontend or ML engineer writing production code	2134	£54,700	£54,700	₹5.88 lakh
Other IT professional, where no closer code fits	2139	£52,300	£52,300	₹5.63 lakh
Security engineer	2135	£48,500	£48,500	₹5.22 lakh
Network engineer	2137	£45,600	£45,600	₹4.90 lakh
QA or test engineer	2136	£41,200	£41,700	₹4.49 lakh
Research scientist, where this code fits	2119	£41,500	£41,700	₹4.49 lakh
Data analyst	3544	£34,900	Medium skilled: needs an exception first	n/a

Rupee figures use about ₹129 to the pound and are gross, before UK tax. Treat them as approximate; the rate moves.

There is no "AI visa code": an AI engineer shipping models into software points towards 2134, statistical modelling towards 2433, research towards 2119. A product manager at a tech company is not automatically an IT product manager under 2132. And hours matter: the software rate is £28.05 an hour, which on a 40-hour week works out at about £58,300 a year, not £54,700.

What does £54,700 mean in rupees?

At about ₹129 to the pound, £54,700 a year is roughly ₹70.6 lakh a year, or ₹5.88 lakh a month, gross. The general threshold of £41,700 is about ₹4.49 lakh a month.

That sounds generous next to an Indian salary, but it is taxed and spent in pounds. The more useful comparison is with what UK employers post. In the software roles we track in the UK that show a salary, more than 9 in 10 have a lower bound at or above £54,700, and the median lower bound is £100,000. For most experienced engineers, the going rate is not what stands in the way. The sponsor is.

The exception is the start of a career. Among entry-level software postings that show pay, only about 1 in 4 clear £54,700. This is where the new-entrant rate matters, and where a graduate offer that looks fine can fail.

What does it cost, spread over the visa?

The costs split between you and the employer, and the split matters.

What you pay (unless your employer reimburses you):

• Visa fee from outside the UK: £819 for up to three years, £1,618 for longer.
• Immigration Health Surcharge: £1,035 per adult per year, paid up front for the whole visa (£776 a year for a child).
• Savings to show: £1,270, held for 28 days, unless the sponsor certifies your maintenance. This is money you hold, not a fee.
• An English test or an Ecctis assessment of your degree, a TB test at an approved clinic in India, and any translations.

Here is the arithmetic for the two fixed costs, at about ₹129 to the pound:

Visa length	Visa fee	Health surcharge	Total	In rupees	Per month of the visa	Share of a £54,700 salary over the period
3 years	£819	£3,105	£3,924	about ₹5.1 lakh	£109, about ₹14,100	about 2.4%
5 years	£1,618	£5,175	£6,793	about ₹8.8 lakh	£113, about ₹14,600	about 2.5%

The monthly cost is almost identical. The difference is cash flow: the five-year visa needs about ₹3.7 lakh more up front.

Family changes the picture fast. Partners and children each pay their own visa fee and surcharge for the same length of visa. On a three-year visa, a couple with one child pays about £10,995 in fees and surcharge, roughly ₹14.2 lakh, before the extra savings of £285 for a partner and £315 for a first child.

If you stay for settlement, the current guide lists a further £3,226 per person. For one person, a five-year visa plus settlement comes to about £10,019, or roughly ₹12.9 lakh.

What the employer pays:

• The Certificate of Sponsorship: £525.
• The Immigration Skills Charge: £1,320 for the first year at a medium or large company, £480 at a small one, then half that for each further six months.

For a three-year sponsorship at a medium or large company, that is £3,960 in Skills Charge plus £525, or £4,485, before the company's own licence fee. That is more than the £3,924 you pay, which helps explain why so few postings offer sponsorship. The employer must pay the certificate fee itself. The guidance says that asking the worker to cover it can cost the company its licence.

Which UK tech jobs actually say they sponsor?

Most do not say either way. In the UK tech postings we track, only about 1 in 10 mention visa sponsorship at all. Of those that do, about 3 in 10 say yes.

That share moves a lot by role family. Among postings that take a position:

Role family	Say they sponsor
AI and machine learning	about 5 in 10
Research science	about 4 in 10
Data science and analytics	about 3 in 10
Software engineering	a little under 3 in 10
Product management	about 2 in 10
Security	about 1 in 8

Location matters even more. In London, about 35% of tech postings that mention sponsorship say yes. Outside London, it is about 17%. Counted by company rather than by posting, the gap is wider: about 1 in 3 London tech employers that state a position say yes, against about 1 in 16 elsewhere. In Bristol, around 4 in 10 tech postings mention sponsorship, and in our data none of them say yes.

One caution: in London, three employers account for about half of the postings that say they sponsor. Read these shares as a map of where to look, not a promise. To start from London, see our list of startups in London.

How long does it take from India?

Once you have an offer, the steps run roughly like this:

1. The employer confirms the occupation code and salary, then requests a defined Certificate of Sponsorship. These are usually approved within one working day.
2. You apply online within three months of the certificate, and no more than three months before your start date.
3. You prove B2 English, give biometrics at a visa centre and complete the TB test.
4. A decision on an application from outside the UK usually takes about three weeks.

The real time sink is usually earlier, in finding a sponsor and agreeing a salary that clears the going rate.

Will your offer qualify? A checklist

Check each of these with your employer before you resign:

1. Is the employing entity on the sponsor register? Not the brand.
2. Which occupation code will they use? Read its description against your duties.
3. Does the fixed salary clear the higher of £41,700 and that code's going rate? For software, £54,700.
4. Does it still clear once your contract hours are counted? On 40 hours, software needs about £58,300.
5. Are you relying on a lower rate? If so, confirm which category you fall in (new entrant, PhD or postdoc) and that you meet its conditions.
6. Is the role a medium-skilled one, such as data analyst? If so, establish the exception before anything else.
7. Do you have B2 English evidence? An Indian degree taught in English still needs an Ecctis assessment to count.
8. Who pays what? The certificate and Skills Charge are the employer's; your fee and surcharge are yours unless reimbursed.
9. Can you show £1,270 for 28 days, or will the sponsor certify maintenance?

What changed recently?

• 22 July 2025: the skill level rose to RQF 6, the general threshold to £41,700, and going rates were revised.
• 16 December 2025: the Immigration Skills Charge went up.
• 8 January 2026: the English requirement rose from B1 to B2 for new applicants and people switching visas.
• 8 October 2026: a new Home Office fee table came into force.
• 31 December 2026: most entries on the Immigration Salary List are due to end. That removes temporary shortage access, not tech sponsorship as a whole.

Settlement is still five years on the Skilled Worker route. A move to a ten-year "earned settlement" model has been proposed and consulted on, but it is a proposal, not the current rule.

How do you find companies that sponsor?

The Home Office publishes a register of licensed sponsors that you can download. Use it as a filter, not a promise: a company on the register holds a licence, but that does not mean it is hiring or that it will sponsor the role you want. Check the legal name of the employing company, since it often differs from the brand.

A faster way is to start from roles whose posting says sponsorship is offered. Our UK visa sponsorship jobs page lists live tech roles in the UK whose posting says the company can sponsor, read daily from each company's own careers page. For the wider market, see software engineer jobs in the UK.

What if sponsorship does not work out?

Two routes skip the employer sponsor entirely:

• Global Talent (digital technology) is for recognised or emerging leaders in tech. You need an endorsement, but no job offer, and you can change employers freely. Settlement can come after three or five years, depending on the endorsement.
• High Potential Individual is for graduates of universities on the government's eligible list within the last five years. It lasts two years (three with a PhD) and costs £880 plus the surcharge. It does not lead to settlement on its own.

Neither is automatic for a strong engineer with an Indian degree. Check the eligibility lists before you plan around them.

How we got these numbers

Figures come from live UK tech postings that landed reads from company careers pages, as of 19 October 2026. "Tech" means software engineering, AI and machine learning, data engineering, data science, security, product management and research science. Sponsorship shares count only postings where the text states a position; most do not. Salary figures use postings that publish an annual pound salary, about 1 in 10 software roles, which lean towards London and senior roles. Rupee conversions use the ECB reference rates of 11 September 2026 stored with our salary data, about ₹129 to the pound, and are approximate.

Sources

• GOV.UK, Skilled Worker visa: overview; your job; going rates for eligible occupation codes (updated 22 July 2025); eligible occupations and codes; knowledge of English; when you can be paid less; how much it costs; documents you'll need; your partner and children.
• GOV.UK, Home Office immigration and nationality fees, 8 October 2026 (updated 10 September 2026).
• GOV.UK, UK visa sponsorship for employers: certificates of sponsorship; Immigration Skills Charge. The Immigration Skills Charge (Amendment) Regulations 2025, legislation.gov.uk.
• GOV.UK, Immigration Rules Appendix Immigration Salary List (updated 8 October 2026).
• GOV.UK, Immigration Health Surcharge: how much you pay.
• GOV.UK, Tuberculosis testing in India (updated 10 October 2025).
• GOV.UK, Indefinite leave to remain for Skilled Worker visa holders.
• GOV.UK, Register of licensed sponsors: workers.
• GOV.UK, Global Talent; Global Talent digital technology; High Potential Individual visa.
• GOV.UK, Earned settlement consultation (published 20 November 2025).
• UK Parliament, Hansard, Immigration Rule Changes statement, 1 July 2025.
• House of Commons Library, Changes to UK visa and settlement rules after the 2025 immigration white paper.