Budget 2026 - Revisions to salary rules and revisions to Global Universities List
By Alex Finch
Revision to salary rules in line with MAC recommendations, but questions over New Entrant discount remain
The Budget contains a number of important business immigration announcements. Probably the most important is the decision to reduce Skilled Worker going rate requirements from the 50th percentile to the 25th percentile, from Spring 2027 (6.94). This would reverse the increase which was introduced in April 2024 under the previous Conservative administration. In its December 2025 review, the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) criticised the 50th percentile pay requirement as a mechanism for reducing net migration, noting that it “implicitly prioritised lower-paying occupations”. The MAC suggested that the general salary threshold (currently £41,700 per year) in combination with the 25th percentile going rate requirement, would be sufficient to prevent undercutting of the resident labour market.
The change is likely to have a particularly significant impact on graduate recruitment. In recent years, many employers have found that promising graduates could not meet the salary thresholds required for sponsorship despite performing genuine graduate-level roles. Lowering the occupation-specific going rates, makes it more realistic for these roles to obtain sponsorship (for more information on skilled worker salary requirements, try our purpose-built assessment tool).
But an important issue remains unresolved. The MAC highlighted that the current four-year duration of the New Entrant salary discount (available for those under 26, recent graduates and those pursuing professional qualifications), may be too short. But it declined to make positive recommendations on this, as doing so would overlap with the Government's parallel consultation on earned settlement. That was the proper approach, but the salary measures announced in the Budget continue to leave that significant policy question unanswered: Will the New Entrant maximum period (currently four years) be extended, in tandem with earned settlement reforms?
Revisions to Global Universities List will broaden access to the High Potential Individual visa route. What will an expanded Global Universities list look like?
The Budget stated: “6.96 Expanding the High Potential Individual visa – The government is expanding the High Potential Individual visa route to the top 150 global institutions. There will be a proportional increase to the cap under this scheme.”
The expansion is a vote of confidence in the High Potential Individual route. The route allows an individual who has within the last five years graduated from an institution listed on the global universities list (for their year of graduation) to relocate to the UK with their family, to work for a period of two years (three years for PhDs). The idea is to attract highly skilled international graduates to the UK. The visa scheme is one for which Rishi Sunak claimed personal authorship.
How will the reforms announced in the Budget change the route?
The current cap of 8,000 main applicants a year is unlikely to be actually constraining applications, which sat at just over 2,000 applicants a year when the Home Office last expanded the scheme in November 2025. Of more significance is the comment that the route will be made available to graduates from ‘top 150 global institutions’.
The current list is not quite the ‘top 100’ global universities. The Home Office caseworker guidance describes that the annual list consists of all non-UK universities included within the top 100 of at least two of the following three ranking systems (for that relevant year of graduation), subject to any exclusions the Home Secretary considers appropriate:
Times Higher Education World University Rankings;
Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings; and
Academic Ranking of World Universities, or ARWU.
That produces a smaller list – the current list for qualifications awarded between 1 November 2025 and 31 October 2026, lists 80 institutions. We see the current geographical makeup. Europe, excluding the UK, accounts for 20 out of 80 institutions. (UK universities, although global leaders, are not listed as not eligible.)
Country or territory | Institutions | Share of list |
United States | 33 | 41% |
China | 7 | 9% |
Australia | 6 | 8% |
Hong Kong | 5 | 6% |
France | 4 | 5% |
Germany | 4 | 5% |
Sweden | 4 | 5% |
Canada | 3 | 4% |
Netherlands | 3 | 4% |
Switzerland | 3 | 4% |
Japan | 2 | 3% |
Singapore | 2 | 3% |
South Korea | 2 | 3% |
Belgium | 1 | 1% |
Denmark | 1 | 1% |
What would a “top 150” list look like?
The Budget does not explain precisely how the expanded list will be constructed. In particular, it does not confirm whether the Home Office will simply retain the current methodology but consider universities appearing in the top 150, rather than the top 100, of at least two rankings, or adopt some other approach. But this is the most natural working assumption.
It is straightforward to apply that methodology to the 2026 ranking data (2027 data is not yet available from the Times Higher Education list). Doing so produces a list of 108 eligible non-UK institutions, with Europe (excluding the UK) now contributing 32 institutions, or just under 30%.
On this model the United States remains dominant, but its share falls from 41% to about 37%. Europe would make up just under 30% of the expanded list.
For comparison, the following 12 UK universities would satisfy the same assumed test if British institutions were eligible: University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Imperial College London, The University of Edinburgh, The University of Manchester, King's College London, University of Bristol, The London School of Economics and Political Science, The University of Warwick, University of Birmingham, University of Nottingham, and University College London. (And that would make 44 European institutions in total.)
Until the revised Global Universities List methodology is published, the scope of the expansion cannot be stated with certainty. On the most likely interpretation, however, the change should broaden the route’s geographical reach and give UK employers access to a larger pool of international graduates who can be recruited without initial sponsorship costs.
Alex Finch is an immigration partner at Constantine Law