BY BERNARD RYAN
This is the second of four blog posts, in which Bernard Ryan of the University of Leicester argues that the Government’s earned settlement plan, set out in A Fairer Pathway to Settlement in November 2025, is largely without precedent. If implemented fully, the plan would make it significantly harder to obtain settlement (also known as indefinite leave) than has ever been the case in the UK, and would lead policy to be significantly more restrictive than in comparable countries.
Introduction
This blog post will outline the current rules concerning settlement from work and business categories, and the implications of the earned settlement plan for those categories. It will then highlight how different that plan would be from past UK practice, and from policy in comparable countries in this area. Finally, it will give past UK examples where those already in the UK on work and business routes were exempted from policy changes which were applied to new arrivals.
At the time of writing, there is considerable uncertainty concerning the future of the earned settlement plan, its timing, and its detail. Whatever the outcome is, we hope that the information and sources provided in these blog posts will be useful for those evaluating future UK policy on settlement, whether during the current Parliament, or beyond. We anticipate that these may include parliamentarians, civil society organisations, researchers, foreign nationals and other members of the public.
Settlement from work and business routes: current rules
At present, under the Immigration Rules, the minimum qualifying periods for eligibility for indefinite leave for main applicants in work and business routes depend on the category someone is in. The qualifying period is three years for those in the Innovator Founder category, and many applicants in the Global Talent category. It is five years for skilled workers, ministers of religion, international sportspersons and UK ancestry cases, those on the Scale Up route, representatives of an overseas business, and some applicants under Appendix Global Talent.
Other work and business categories do not lead directly to settlement. In those cases, time spent in the category may count towards the acquisition of settlement under the ‘long residence’ route, based on ten years’ lawful residence. Examples include time spent as a student, or in the graduate or high potential individual categories.
Work and business routes under the earned settlement plan
The earned settlement plan announced in A Fairer Pathway would imply a new and more hierarchical approach to qualifying periods among those in work and business categories.
There would be a minimum qualifying period of three years to settlement in three cases:
- A person in the Innovator Founder category, as at present.
- A person in the Global Talent category. This appears wider than at present (see above).
- A person who had a minimum taxable income of £125,140 each year in the three-year period. This would be an innovation relative to the previous position. It would potentially benefit those on any route, including skilled workers, sportspersons, or as a partner.
For those on the skilled worker route, there would be a minimum qualifying period of five years to settlement in an occupation at RQF 6 or higher, i.e. an occupation which requires at least a qualification at or equivalent to degree level. It would furthermore be necessary either to have earned a minimum of £50,270 for the previous three years, or to have been employed in a ‘specified public service occupation’ for the past five years. From A Fairer Pathway, it appears that the latter of these is intended to cover health and education occupations with national pay scales. It appears that the five-year period would benefit individuals outside work categories, such as partners, who meet the requirements.
In these cases, three and five years would be the minimum, rather than a new baseline. The earned settlement plan, as outlined in A Fairer Pathway, only permits one reduction from the ten-year baseline to be relied upon by an individual.
Others on the skilled worker route would face a baseline qualifying period of ten years to settlement. This baseline would apply to those in an occupation at RQF 6 or above, whose earnings were less than £50,270 in the relevant period and who were not in a public service occupation for the requisite period. Such a combination is possible under the current skilled worker rules, where the general minimum salary for newly-sponsored workers has been set at £41,700 since July 2025, and there are reductions which mean that some categories of worker are covered by minimum amounts of as low as £25,000.
The ten-year period would also cover persons in occupations below RQF 6, regardless of their earnings or whether they work in public service occupation. In these cases, a further proposal put forward for consultation in A Fairer Pathway is a baseline qualifying period of fifteen years. It appears from A Fairer Pathway that the occupations most likely to be affected by this further proposal are senior care workers and care workers.
Past policy
The elongated baseline qualifying periods for many categories of worker contemplated in A Fairer Pathway would be markedly at odds with past practice in the UK.
For many years, the qualifying period for acquisition of settlement from employment and related categories was four years. That period was required in the Immigration Rules adopted in January 1973 under the Immigration Act 1971. Four years was also the qualifying period when the Rules first made separate provision for the acquisition of indefinite leave from each employment category in May 1994.
The qualifying period was increased to five years in all work and business categories, through changes to the Rules which took effect on 3 April 2006. In the light of the current earned settlement, it is ironic that the Labour Government of the time justified that increase as bringing ‘practice more into line with the European norm’ (Controlling our Borders: Making Migration Work for Britain, February 2005, para 39). The five-year norm was retained for the work and business categories which became Tiers 1 and 2 of the original points-based system, when that was rolled out in February, July and November 2008.
Eligibility for indefinite leave for Tier 2 (General) workers – broadly, today’s skilled workers – was the subject of restriction in the period of Coalition and Conservative Governments from 2010 onwards. In June 2011, the Home Office consulted on a series of options for limiting access to Tier 2 (General), with the aim of making it a temporary route for many workers. Under the policy then announced in February 2012, Tier 2 (General) workers could progress to indefinite leave after the five-year qualifying period, only if they earned in excess of £35,000, or were in a shortage occupation or an occupation requiring a PhD. For workers who could not obtain indefinite leave, a maximum stay of six years was provided for. By comparison with current proposals, it is noteworthy that there was no suggestion in 2011-2012 of a qualifying period of longer than five years to obtain indefinite leave: the options were eligibility or temporary stay.
The policy of restricting access to indefinite leave from Tier 2 (General) came into effect in April 2016. Problems with the policy were soon highlighted by the Migration Advisory Committee, namely the gap between starting salaries and the settlement threshold in certain public sector occupations, and in some geographical areas (A Points-Based System and Salary Thresholds for Immigration, January 2020, pp 74-75). A higher income requirement at the settlement stage would then be dropped when the post-Brexit skilled worker route replaced Tier 2 (General) on 1 December 2020. A five-year qualifying period has remained the norm for all those admitted as skilled workers since 1 December 2020.
Policy in other countries
The evidence for comparable countries is that five years is typically the maximum period a skilled worker or similar might expect to wait to qualify for permanent residence.
For EU states, permanent residence after two years is provided for by the Blue Card Directive, which was initially adopted in 2009, and recast in 2021. This Directive covers employment for which higher education qualifications or comparable professional skills are required. For workers who fall outside that measure, the Long-Term Residents Directive of 2003 will often give access to long-term stay after five years. While it does not cover workers authorised to reside ‘solely on temporary grounds such as au pair or seasonal worker, or as workers posted by a service provider’, workers who reside on other grounds, without being classed as highly qualified, do benefit from it. These Directives apply to the 25 EU Member States other than Denmark and Ireland.
In other comparable countries, many individuals in work categories acquire permanent residence status at the outset, without a qualifying period of residence. This possibility arises for Australia through the Skilled Independent visa; for Canada through the Federal Skilled Worker Program; and for the United States via overseas applications for an employment-based green card.
In those countries permanent residence may also be acquired after a short period of residence in a non-permanent work category. For Australia, eligibility for the employer nomination scheme arises after two years’ skilled employment. For Canada, one year’s employment is required before applying for a permanent visa in the skilled work Canadian Experience Class. In the United States, adjustment from an H1-B skilled worker visa is a frequent route to lawful permanent residence. In addition, in New Zealand, two years’ residence for skilled work generally leads to eligibility for permanent residence. In all these systems, delays in obtaining status may nevertheless arise from processing queues.
Protection of those currently in the UK
It was made clear in A Fairer Pathway that the changes under the earned settlement plan would ‘apply … to everyone in the country today who has not already received indefinite leave to remain’. That would amount to giving retrospective effect to the changes, as those who arrived prior to the announcement of the earned settlement policy may have their route to settlement amended and lengthened to their detriment. The possibility of retrospective effects has been a key criticism of the plan, including by Labour MPs and the House of Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee.
This kind of retrospective effect would be at odds with the consistent approach over the past 15 years, which has been to protect those already in the UK from changes made to work and business categories. The following examples may be given.
On 6 April 2012, provisions in the Immigration Rules which gave domestic workers a route to settlement after five years’ employment were replaced by a far more limited route, allowing them to stay in the UK for a maximum of six months. That change was accompanied by provision for those already admitted under the earlier Rules to continue to have their leave extended, and to obtain indefinite leave, on the previous terms. Those transitional provisions are still contained in an Appendix to the Rules.
In November 2014, changes to the Rules saw an increase in the minimum investment threshold for Tier 1 Investors from £1 million to £2 million. Those who had already been admitted under the £1 million rule were, however, permitted to continue to extend their leave, and to apply for indefinite leave on that basis.
On 4 April 2024, as a result of changes to the Rules, in most skilled worker occupations, the general minimum salary requirement was increased from £26,200 to £38,700, while the ‘going rate’ for an occupation was raised by basing it on the median rather than the 25th percentile.Those who entered the skilled worker route prior to 4 April 2024have been protected by transitional arrangements, so that they do not have to meet the new higher salary requirements when applying for an extension or indefinite leave.
Similar provision was made when changes to the Rules raised the minimum skill level required in the skilled worker route, from RQF3 to RQF6, with effect from 22 July 2025. Again, those who entered the skilled worker route prior to that date, and who have since held permission continuously, are permitted to continue to extend and to apply for indefinite leave within roles between RQF 3 and RQF 5.
Finally, the English language requirement was raised from European standard B1 to B2 for the skilled worker, high-potential individual and scale‑up routes, with effect from 8 January 2026. If the applicant’s most recent permission was granted at the lower level, they do not need to meet the higher standard when making an extension application. The standard at the indefinite leave stage remains B1, though this will rise to B2 if the earned settlement plan is implemented in full.
Conclusion
There is no precedent for the Government’s plans as regards settlement from work and business routes. As argued in an earlier blog post, the absence of precedent ought to generate a presumption against significant policy change unless a clear case can be made for it.
Such a case is entirely lacking in relation to settlement from work and business routes. A recent Migration Advisory Committee report showed that the large majority of those who come to the UK as skilled workers make a net fiscal contribution over their lifetimes. The same is presumably true of other work and business categories too. Furthermore, as Jonathan Portes has outlined, because migration for work and business is akin to an investment decision, the reputation loss for the UK if retrospective changes were now made, and a new policy under which settlement could take longer, would deter many in those categories from moving here in the future. In short, there is a clear risk that the planned unprecedented changes to settlement from work and business routes would prove counter-productive in fiscal and economic terms.
Bernard Ryan is Professor of Migration Law at the University of Leicester.
Notes
This series of blog posts is based on the briefing paper Earned Settlement: A Policy without Precedent (April 2026), which has been part of ILPA’s response to the Government’s earned settlement plan. The previous post dealt with the general scheme of earned settlement, and the remaining two will address settlement from the main family categories and from international protection categories. A list of contributors was provided in the first post in the series.
Nothing contained within this document is to be taken as legal advice or to constitute legal representations. ILPA recommends that any person who requires tailored legal advice seek it from a qualified legal professional.
ILPA invites members and other leading experts to contribute articles to its monthly blog. The views expressed in all blog posts are the authors’ own and are not necessarily those of ILPA.
- Document Date
- Monday July 20, 2026