Two thirds of architect practices cannot pay new rates to sponsor overseas skilled workers

Law firms Bates Wells and Kingsley Napley are urging Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to respond to their letter, sent 16 December 2024 (see here), which highlighted the concerns of clients in the architect sector about the impact of minimum salary threshold changes on their ability to recruit and retain the right talent.

The architect industry is a valuable addition to the UK economy, whose recruitment strategies and people growth have been negatively impacted by the April 2024 Immigration Rules changes. The increased minimum salary of £45,900 for sponsored workers to be eligible for a visa doesn’t align with common architecture salary bands, the letter explained.

Bates Wells and Kingsley Napley surveyed the HR Architects Forum, also known as the Architecture HR Network (AHRN), the leading HR community for those in the architect industry with over 165 member firms across the UK. Some 70 leading member firms provided responses last autumn about the impact of the visa rules changes implemented by the last Government. The key findings (see here) relayed to Yvette Cooper included:

• Unrealistic threshold: The average salary respondent firms pay their architects is £37,523* – notably below the £45,900 salary threshold now required to sponsor a migrant worker.
• Can’t pay: Nearly two thirds of architect employers (62% of respondents) cannot pay the new salary rates required to hire professionals from abroad. However, in the past, 91% of respondents have needed to sponsor overseas talent.
• Staff cuts: 77% of respondents expected a reduction in their migrant workforce as a result of the April 2024 rule changes.  
• Change: Over 50% of respondents want sponsored worker salary bands adjusted downwards for the sector, to enable them to recruit foreign workers in future. 

Marcia Longdon, immigration partner at Kingsley Napley, comments: “Our architect clients tell us that the current salary threshold to sponsor migrant recruits is unworkable.  Last year’s changes are severely restricting firms’ ability to employ overseas talent below a senior level and this is now having a knock-on effect on their ability to staff projects and progress workflow. The £45k salary threshold is simply too high for this sector.”

Chetal Patel, Head of Immigration at Bates Wells, comments: “The changes to salary thresholds are having a damaging effect on the architect sector, making it harder for firms to access top talent needed for growth. We urge the Government to align with its own Industrial Strategy and allow architects back on the Immigration Salary List, commissioning the Migration Advisory Committee to review the industry thoroughly. Professional and business services are one of the eight sectors that the Government wants to help fuel the UK economy. We need to unlock growth as it will act as a catalyst for the architect sector to thrive in the business environment.”

Camilla Rich, Trustee and Head of HR of Make Architects, comments “Since the minimum salary increase in April 2024, we have seen a significant impact on our business. It’s not just the increase in salary, but also the knock-on effect it has on other visa costs, sponsoring qualifications, and ensuring fair pay across all our salary bands. All of this means recruiting from overseas has become much more difficult, restricting our ability to hire the best talent for the job, particularly at graduate level. This is detrimental to our diversity goals, could affect our projects that require people who are fluent in other languages and have local understanding, and ultimately makes our ability to grow harder. Removing architects from the Immigration Salary List (previously known as the Shortage Occupation List) without any consultation with the sector meant that we had to adapt to the changes quickly, which has left our currently sponsored employees unsure how they will be able to stay in the UK after their current visas expire. Seeing the sector return to the ISL would help us resolve some of these issues almost immediately.”

Having not received a response to their letter, Bates Wells and Kingsley Napley are calling on the Home Secretary to:

• return Architects to the ISL (Immigration Salary List which replaced the Shortage Occupation List last year) affording them a reduction in the minimum salary threshold.
• commission the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to undertake a full review of the architect industry and undertake a call for evidence.