Britain has hit its cap on visas for skilled non-European workers for an unprecedented third month in a row, deepening the staffing crisis facing the NHS and other key employers.

When the monthly quota was reached in December and January for the first time in seven years immigration lawyers had expected it would prove to be a blip, but they now fear it is turning into a long-term problem.

More than a third of the tier-2 work visas issued by the Home Office go to medical and other staff recruited to work in the NHS. Migration experts expect that among the first group to be turned away will be doctors and other healthcare staff, software developers and scientists.

The next set of quarterly immigration figures will be published on Thursday. They are expected to show increasing evidence of a “Brexodus” over the past year, with an accelerating decline in the numbers of EU nationals coming to work in Britain while increasing numbers return home.

The Home Office sent out hundreds of emails to UK employers and businesses last week telling them that their applications for the certificates of sponsorship required to recruit mostly highly skilled workers from outside the EU had been refused because they did not meet the minimum points score set for the February quota.

The cap on skilled worker numbers operates on an annual quota of 20,700 with a fixed number of spaces available each month. Until last December the monthly quota had only been exceeded in one month since the cap was introduced by Theresa May as home secretary in 2011.

The Home Office confirmed that the minimum salary for a job to qualify for a skilled work visa was normally £30,000, or £20,800 for a graduate recruit. However, in December it was set at £55,000 and in January tier-2 visa applications for jobs paying less than £46,000 a year were refused unless they were PhD-level roles or were for jobs on the official shortage occupation lists.



The points-based immigration system prioritises applicants according to their advertised salary, with the minimum annual pay changing according to the number of applicants above the quota and their points rating. This hits the NHS particularly hard.



Q&A Does the UK have enough doctors and nurses? Show The UK has fewer doctors and nurses than many other comparable countries both in Europe and worldwide. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Britain comes 24th in a league table of 34 member countries in terms of the number of doctors per capita. Greece, Austria and Norway have the most; the three countries with the fewest are Turkey, Chile and Mexico. Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, regularly points out that the NHS in England has more doctors and nurses than when the Conservatives came to power in 2010. That is true, although there are now fewer district nurses, mental health nurses and other types of health professionals. NHS unions and health thinktanks point out that rises in NHS staff’s workloads have outstripped the increases in overall staff numbers. Hospital bosses say understaffing is now their number one problem, even ahead of lack of money and pressure to meet exacting NHS-wide performance targets. Hunt has recently acknowledged that, and Health Education England, the NHS’s staffing and training agency, last month published a workforce strategy intended to tackle the problem. Read a full Q&A on the NHS winter crisis

Nichola Carter, an immigration specialist at Carter Thomas solicitors, said: “From the information I’m receiving it is starting to look like the threshold for rejection in February could be around the £50k mark. Initially it was thought that December and January were just blips. Now it’s starting to feel like this could be a long-term issue.”



She said employers were increasingly seeking to sponsor skilled workers because they needed certainty in their recruitment plans.

“The government has to step in now and either change the points or the criteria or create exemptions. Calls for NHS workers to be removed have already been made.”

Carter added that she had seen two applications refused for clients last week: a software developer and a designer for a bespoke luxury goods manufacturer.



All jobs offered to skilled workers from outside the EU that are not on the official shortage occupation lists have to be advertised in Britain first for a set period unless the salary will be at least £159,600.

“I know of employers who are now willing to pay £65,000 for a job they were previously offering a salary of £35,000 for just to make sure they get a visa in the next round of allocations,” Carter added.

The immigration law firm Fragomen confirmed that the cap had been reached for the third time. “Since the quota has been exceeded three times consecutively it is highly likely to be exceeded again next month due to the volume of reapplications. Applicants can reapply next month provided the job advertisement is still valid. There is no right of appeal following refusal.”

Danny Mortimer, the chief executive of NHS Employers, has pressed the Home Office to exempt medical staff from the quota, saying NHS organisations were “increasingly concerned at their inability to obtain permits for essential medical colleagues”.

More than a third of tier-2 work visas issued by the Home Office go to medical and other staff recruited by the NHS. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA

A Home Office spokesperson said: “It is important that our immigration system works in the national interest, ensuring that employers look first to the UK resident labour market before recruiting from overseas.

“The tier 2 visa route is intended to fill gaps in the labour market. When demand exceeds the month’s allocation of tier 2 (general) visas, priority is given to applicants filling a shortage or PhD-level occupations.



“The published shortage lists include a range of medical professionals, including consultants specialising in clinical radiology and emergency medicine, and we estimate that around a third of all tier 2 places go to the NHS.”