Senior or Specialist Worker Route: ICT Visa Requirements Under Global Business Mobility

The Senior or Specialist Worker route is the modern form of the Intra-Company Transfer (ICT) visa. It replaced ICT on 11 April 2022 as part of the UK's Global Business Mobility (GBM) framework, and it remains the main mechanism multinational groups use to move senior managers and specialists into a linked UK entity.

Most of what changed recently did not change in 2026. The salary threshold rose to £52,500 on 22 July 2025. The eVisa transition finished at the end of 2024. What is new for 2026 is a fee uplift on 8 April, an extension of right-to-work duties on 1 October, and a settlement reform that is still pending. This guide sets out where the rules actually stand, and what HR and mobility teams should be doing about them.

Overview of the Senior or Specialist Worker Route

The route covers temporary transfers of existing group employees into UK operations. It suits time-bound assignments in sectors such as technology, finance and engineering, and it carries two advantages over the Skilled Worker route: no English language test and no requirement to advertise the role in the UK.

It also carries one significant limitation. The route does not lead to Indefinite Leave to Remain, and time spent on it does not count towards the five-year settlement clock. Any transferee the business wants to keep permanently has to switch to another route, and the clock starts from that switch.

Permission is issued digitally as an eVisa. Biometric Residence Permits are no longer issued and the cards still in circulation expired at the end of 2024.

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Which Global Business Mobility Route Do You Need?

GBM is not one visa. It is five, and sponsors regularly assign a Certificate of Sponsorship under the wrong one. The distinctions matter because duration, cost and salary rules all differ:

• Senior or Specialist Worker: existing group employees transferring into a linked UK entity. £52,500 threshold. Up to 5 years in any 6. The only GBM route that triggers the Immigration Skills Charge.
• Graduate Trainee: a structured graduate programme requiring a UK rotation. £27,300 threshold, 3 months' prior overseas employment, maximum 12 months with no extension and no switching in from inside the UK.
• UK Expansion Worker: establishing a UK branch or subsidiary where no trading presence yet exists. £52,500 threshold, 2-year ceiling.
• Service Supplier: contractual service delivery under a trade agreement. No general salary threshold.
• Secondment Worker: secondments tied to a high-value contract. No general salary threshold.

HR Action: Confirm the route before the CoS is assigned, not after. A graduate on a training rotation belongs on Graduate Trainee — sponsoring them as a Senior or Specialist Worker means paying a Skills Charge that route does not attract, and applying a salary threshold nearly double the correct one.

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Eligibility Requirements

To qualify for the Senior or Specialist Worker Route in 2026, both the employee and the sponsoring company must qualify:

For Employees

1. Employment History:
   • At least 12 months' continuous employment with the overseas group, outside the UK, immediately before the application.
   • Waived entirely if the worker will be paid £73,900 or more a year. In that case they need only be employed by the group on the date of application.
2. Job Role:
   • The role must sit at RQF Level 6 (degree level) or above, under an occupation code in Appendix Skilled Occupations. This skills threshold has not changed.
   • Occupation code selection is where most refusals originate. Choosing a code with a convenient lower going rate, rather than the code that genuinely fits the duties, is a refusal ground.
3. Salary:
   • At least £52,500 a year, or 100% of the going rate for the occupation code — whichever is higher. The threshold rose from £48,500 on 22 July 2025 with no transitional relief.
   • The threshold is a floor, not a test. Where the going rate is higher, the going rate governs.
4. Certificate of Sponsorship:
   • A valid CoS from a UK sponsor holding a GBM Senior or Specialist Worker licence, normally assigned within 3 months of the application.
5. Financial requirement:
   • £1,270 held for 28 consecutive days — unless the A-rated sponsor certifies maintenance on the CoS, or the applicant has been in the UK with permission for 12 months or more.
6. No English Language Requirement:
   • No test at entry or extension. Note this is now a genuine point of difference: the Skilled Worker route introduced a B2 CEFR requirement on 8 January 2026.

HR Action: Evidence the 12 months properly — payslips, contract and an employer letter covering the full period. Where the worker is close to £73,900, model whether pushing above it is worth the cost: it removes the 12-month rule and extends the maximum stay from 5 years to 9.

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For Companies

1. Valid GBM Sponsor Licence:
   • The UK entity must hold a Global Business Mobility – Senior or Specialist Worker licence. A Skilled Worker licence alone is not sufficient.
   • Licences last 10 years; renewals were abolished in April 2024.
2. Proof of Business Link:
   • Corporate documents must demonstrate common ownership or control between the UK and overseas entities.
3. Compliance Systems:
   • Record-keeping, SMS reporting within 10 to 20 working days, and audit readiness.

Qualifying Corporate Relationships and Evidence

To assign a CoS, the UK and overseas entities must share common ownership or control. Qualifying relationships include:

• Parent, subsidiary or branch: direct or majority ownership, or the UK entity operating as a registered branch.
• Group companies: both entities are subsidiaries of the same global parent.
• Joint ventures: connected through an active, legally binding joint venture.

Important: the worker must remain employed by the overseas entity for the duration of the UK assignment. A localised UK contract is not permitted on this route. Permission itself is granted for the shorter of the CoS end date plus 14 days, or 5 years.

Evidencing the Link to UKVI

UKVI does not assume corporate entities are linked. If an overseas entity is missing from the "Overseas Linked Entities" tab of your Sponsor Management System account, that is a live compliance risk. Submit an update request with:

1. Official group structure chart
2. Latest annual group reports, such as audited consolidated accounts
3. Overseas registration certificates
4. Notarised legal affidavit:  signed by a senior executive and witnessed by a solicitor, verifying registration details and shared ownership

What Counts Towards the Salary

This is the most commonly misapplied rule on the route, in both directions. Sponsors either count things they shouldn't, or exclude things they could have used.

• Counts: guaranteed gross basic pay, plus allowances guaranteed for the duration of the UK assignment — including mobility premiums and London weighting.
• Counts, but capped: accommodation allowances, up to 30% of the total salary package. Only the portion within the cap is counted.
• Does not count: bonuses, overtime, shift premiums, employer pension contributions, per diems, untaxed expenses and benefits in kind such as health insurance or a company car.
• Hours cap: salary is assessed on a maximum of 48 hours a week. A longer contracted week cannot be used to lift an otherwise insufficient salary over the threshold.

HR Action: Document the salary assessment before the CoS is assigned — occupation code, going rate, annual salary, weekly hours and which elements of pay were counted. Repeat the assessment whenever pay, hours or duties change. Treat this as ongoing licence management, not a one-off application calculation.

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Application Process

The process runs across three parties: the UK sponsor, the overseas entity and the employee.

1. Secure a GBM Sponsor Licence (if not already held):
   • £611 for small or charitable sponsors, £1,682 for medium or large sponsors, under the fee schedule in force from 8 April 2026.
   • Standard processing takes around 8 weeks. The priority service returns a decision in 10 working days for a further £750, and daily slots are limited.
2. Assign a Certificate of Sponsorship:
   • £525 per certificate. This cannot lawfully be recovered from the worker.
3. Submit the visa application:
   • CoS reference number
   • Passport, with certified translations of any document not in English or Welsh
   • Evidence of 12 months' overseas employment
   • Proof of funds, unless maintenance is certified on the CoS
   • TB test certificate if applying from a listed country
4. Verify identity:
   • Either at a visa application centre or through the UK Immigration ID Check app where eligible.
5. Await the decision:
   • Standard: around 3 weeks from outside the UK, around 8 weeks in-country.
   • Priority: 5 working days, £500 per applicant.
   • Super priority: end of the next working day, £1,000 per applicant. Not available at every location.

Plan for roughly 12 to 16 weeks from a standing start — licence, CoS assignment, application, biometrics and decision — or 4 to 6 weeks where the licence is already in place and priority processing is used. The priority clock starts at biometrics, so appointment availability is part of the real timeline. In peak season a standard application with an immediate appointment sometimes beats a priority application waiting two weeks for a slot.

HR Action: Have the employee create a UKVI account early. The eVisa is the only proof of status, and access problems surface at the worst possible moment usually at the border or on day one of employment.

Jobbatical's team handles UK intra-company transfer applications end to end.

Use priority services for urgent transfers, Check Senior or Specialist Worker visa services- ICT visa guidance.

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What a Transfer Actually Costs

Figures below are Home Office charges in force from 8 April 2026, for a single transferee on a three-year assignment with no dependants.

Paid by the employer, and not recoverable from the worker:

• Sponsor licence, one-off: £611 (small) or £1,682 (medium or large)
• Certificate of Sponsorship: £525
• Immigration Skills Charge over three years: £1,440 (small) or £3,960 (large)

Paid by the applicant:

• Visa fee: £819 from outside the UK for a CoS of three years or less, rising to £1,618 above three years. In-country applications run £943 to £1,865.
• Immigration Health Surcharge: £1,035 per adult per year, £776 per child, payable upfront for the full grant period — £3,105 over three years.

Rough totals, excluding the one-off licence: around £5,900 per transfer for a small sponsor and around £8,400 for a large one. Add £500 or £1,000 per person for priority processing, and the same visa fee and IHS again for every dependant.

The Skills Charge is billed upfront for the whole CoS period: £480 for the first year then £240 per additional six months for small sponsors, and £1,320 then £660 for large ones. Recovering the licence fee, the CoS fee or the Skills Charge from a sponsored worker normally results in licence revocation.

HR Action: Build assignment budgets off the CoS length, not the expected stay. A CoS written for five years when the assignment is three costs an extra £2,640 in Skills Charge alone for a large sponsor.

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Dependants

A partner and children under 18 can apply as dependants. Each files a separate application.

• Each dependant pays the same application fee band as the main applicant, plus IHS at £1,035 per adult per year or £776 per child.
• Dependants hold full work rights and can study. There is no separate sponsorship or salary requirement for them.
• Financial requirement, where funds must be shown: £285 for a partner, £315 for the first child and £200 for each additional child, on top of the main applicant's £1,270. Sponsor certification and the 12-month UK residence exemption both remove this.
• Dependant permission is tied to the main applicant's. When the assignment ends, their permission ends too.

HR Action: Price dependants into the assignment budget at the outset. For a transferee with a partner and two children on a three-year assignment, IHS alone adds more than £8,500 — routinely the single largest line item in the package and the one most often missed.

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Benefits of the Senior or Specialist Worker Route

For Companies

• No labour market test: the role does not need to be advertised in the UK.
• No English requirement: removes a barrier that now applies to Skilled Worker hires at B2 level.
• Operational flexibility: well suited to time-bound assignments and project deployments.
• Retained group employment: the worker stays on the overseas contract, which keeps group structures and internal reporting lines intact.

For Employees

• Career development: substantive UK experience within the existing employer.
• Family inclusion: dependants can accompany them with work and study rights.
• NHS access: through the Immigration Health Surcharge.
• Duration: up to 5 years in any 6-year period, or 9 years in any 10 where pay is £73,900 or more. Time on other GBM routes, and on the predecessor ICT route, counts towards those ceilings.

HR Action: Be straight with transferees about the settlement position from the start. Discovering at year four that none of their UK time counts towards ILR is a retention problem that could have been a planning conversation.

HR Action: Highlight these benefits in employee communications to enhance engagement and retention during transfers.

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Compliance Obligations in 2026

• Reporting duties:
  • Changes to role, salary or work location: within 10 working days via the Sponsor Management System.
  • Organisational changes such as address or ownership: within 20 working days.
• Right-to-work checks:
  • Run an online check using an eVisa share code through the Home Office checking service before employment starts.
  • A follow-up check is due when the worker's permission expires — not annually. Diarise the expiry date; that is what protects the statutory excuse.
  • An expired BRP is not acceptable evidence on its own, whatever the card shows. This is where most avoidable civil penalties now originate.
• Record-keeping:
  • Retain the CoS, payslips, contracts and right-to-work evidence for the sponsorship period plus one year. Record the date of every check on the file itself.
• Audits:
  • Home Office visits can be unannounced. Expect scrutiny of salary calculations, occupation code selection and the linked entity record.

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The 1 October 2026 Right-to-Work Change

Section 48 of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025 comes into force on 1 October 2026 and extends the illegal working regime beyond contracts of employment. Checks will be required for a far wider set of engagements: individual contractors, agency workers, subcontractors, zero-hours and casual staff, and workers sourced through online platforms.

A new extended liability provision also means an organisation can face a civil penalty where illegal working occurs further down a subcontracting chain, even without a direct engagement. Penalties run to £45,000 per worker for a first breach and £60,000 for a repeat within three years. Contractual labels will not decide the question — UKVI will look at how the work is actually arranged and performed.

This applies to every UK business, not only licensed sponsors.

HR Action: Audit your contingent workforce now. Map who is engaged, on what basis, and by whom — then extend your checking process to cover them before 1 October. For sponsors, a failure here sits alongside your licence at the next compliance visit.

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Exit Planning: Switching and Settlement

The route ends. Planning for how it ends is the part most mobility programmes handle late.

• Switching to Skilled Worker is permitted in-country, which the old ICT rules prohibited. This is the standard path for a transferee the business wants to keep.
• The settlement clock starts at the switch, not at UK arrival. A worker who spends four years as a Senior or Specialist Worker and then switches faces a further five years before ILR — nine years in the UK in total.
• English is now a gate. The B2 CEFR requirement introduced on the Skilled Worker route on 8 January 2026 applies to in-country switches. A transferee who never needed a test on this route will need one to move across. Start that conversation early: a SELT booking is not a two-week job.
• Salary is a second gate. Skilled Worker has its own threshold and going rate rules, and the correct occupation code may differ from the one used for the transfer.

On earned settlement: the government's proposal to raise the baseline ILR qualifying period from five years to ten was set out in the May 2025 Immigration White Paper and developed through the "A Fairer Pathway to Settlement" consultation, which closed on 12 February 2026 with around 200,000 responses. It is not law. No Immigration Rules implementing it have been laid, and the current five-year route remains fully in force. Implementation is targeted for autumn 2026, the Home Secretary confirmed in March 2026 that it is intended to apply retrospectively to people already in the UK without ILR, and transitional protections remain undecided. A separate B2 English requirement for ILR applies from 26 March 2027.

HR Action: For anyone the business intends to keep, switch earlier rather than later. Every month spent on this route is a month that does not count, and the rules governing the destination route are tightening on a published timetable.

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Challenges and Common Pitfalls

• Occupation code selection: the most frequent cause of refusal. Pick the code that fits the duties, then test the salary against that code's going rate — not the other way round.
• Missing linked entity records: if the overseas employer is not recorded against your licence, the CoS is exposed. Audit the Overseas Linked Entities tab before each assignment cycle.
• Salary miscalculation: counting bonuses or benefits in kind, or relying on a contracted week above 48 hours. Both are refusal grounds.
• Threshold pressure: £52,500 or the going rate narrows the pool. Where the role genuinely suits a graduate programme, Graduate Trainee applies a £27,300 threshold — but only for a genuine structured training programme leading to a senior or specialist role.
• No settlement pathway: manage this as an expectation-setting problem, not a legal one.
• Audit exposure: non-compliance risks licence suspension or revocation, which affects every route the group runs on that licence. Run mock audits.

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Strategic Considerations for 2026 and 2027

• Two dates to diarise: 1 October 2026 for the right-to-work expansion, and autumn 2026 onwards for earned settlement. Neither is optional and only one has a fixed date.
• Cost trajectory: the 8 April 2026 uplift added roughly 6 to 7% to application and licence fees, following the Skills Charge increase in December 2025. Budget on the assumption of annual uplifts rather than stable fees.
• Programme-level thinking: one licence carries every GBM route the group uses. A compliance failure on one transfer programme endangers all of them. Review GBM activity as a system, not as a series of individual visas.
• Ceiling arithmetic: for groups running rotating transfer programmes, track each transferee's cumulative GBM and legacy ICT time before making renewal promises.

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Conclusion

The Senior or Specialist Worker route still does the job it was designed for: moving experienced people into a UK entity quickly, without an English test or a labour market test. What it does not do is build a permanent UK workforce, and the gap between those two things is where mobility programmes get caught out.

The operational priorities for the rest of 2026 are narrow enough to list. Get the salary calculation documented before the CoS is assigned. Diarise permission expiry dates rather than running annual checks. Extend right-to-work processes beyond direct employees before 1 October. And for anyone the business intends to keep, start the Skilled Worker switch conversation — including the English test — well before the assignment's final year.

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Disclaimer: Immigration rules change quite frequently; please verify with official sources or contact us for the latest info before making any decisions.