Salary requirement for
Tier 2 restricted CoS
remains low
18 September 2015
Employers of migrant workers in the UK breathed a sigh of relief this month as the minimum salary requirement for the September allocation of Tier 2 restricted Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) was announced at £27,000.
Following the chaos of June and July’s allocations, sponsor organisations rejoiced in August after the minimum salary requirement for the granting of Tier 2 restricted CoS was lowered from £32,000 to £24,000, following two months of unreliable restricted CoS allocations.
The September allocation has also been one of relative popularity with sponsor organisations, with the minimum salary requirement remaining low at £27,000 and restricted CoS requests needing only to score 39 points or more in order to be granted.
A restricted CoS is a document essential to the hiring of each migrant employee and is applied for by the sponsor employer on a monthly basis according to their HR needs. Each application is awarded points according to a set of criteria (page 96 of the Tier 2 & 5 Sponsor Guidance), of which the salary being offered to the potential migrant employee plays a key role.
As stipulated by the migrant cap, only 20,700 skilled migrants are allowed into the UK for work purposes from outside the EEA each year.
This means there are only 1,650 restricted CoS available for all UK employers of migrant staff each month and, during times of over subscription, the Home Office must somehow prioritise certain requests over others.
This led to the minimum salary requirement of £20,800 being raised during the busy month of June to the significantly higher figure of £46,000. During this month, restricted CoS requests needed to score a minimum of 50 points (a far more stringent requirement than the normal 32 points) in order to be considered. July allocations demanded a similarly high minimum salary in order for requests to be granted, with restricted CoS being allocated only where a salary of £32,000 or more was being offered and 45 points or more had been awarded.
This came as a huge blow for employers of migrant staff, whose HR strategies rely heavily on their monthly requests for an allocation of Tier 2 restricted CoS being granted.
Despite the minimum salary requirement slowly beginning to return to normality, it will be interesting to see if it can be successfully maintained against the needs of the flourishing UK economy. The government has stated that it ‘is not minded to increase the migrant cap at this time’ but seems unaware of the damage that such nonchalance may cause for many UK industries.
Contact Smith Stone Walters if you have any concerns on how the migrant cap is affecting your HR strategy.
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