The UK care sector is grappling with significant recruitment challenges following a sharp decline in work visas issued to overseas healthcare professionals, according to newly released Home Office statistics.
Official data reveals that Health and Care Worker visas granted to international applicants, including dependents, decreased by 77% in the twelve months ending June 2025, falling to just over 20,500 from the previous year’s figure of 89,095.
The impact on nursing recruitment has been particularly severe, with visa approvals for overseas nursing professionals dropping by 80% to 3,080 over the same period. Care workers in personal service roles experienced an even steeper decline, with visa numbers falling by 88% to 7,378.
The dramatic reduction follows a series of policy reforms implemented by the government throughout the year. Care providers seeking to recruit from overseas must now demonstrate they have first attempted to employ candidates already residing in the UK who require visa sponsorship.
Since April, the minimum salary threshold for Skilled Worker visas increased from £23,200 to £25,000 annually (£12.82 per hour), aligning with minimum wage increases. Additionally, new proposals will extend the residency requirement for sponsored care workers from five to ten years before they can apply for indefinite leave to remain.
The government has attributed the nursing visa decline to “the conclusion of the centrally supported international nurse recruitment programme and shifting demand for overseas staff.”
Nuni Jorgensen, from the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said and increase in people smuggling and a “larger numbers of people claiming asylum after arriving on visas” could be partly behind the rise.
“It is hard to know to what extent the repeal of the previous government’s asylum policies has contributed, not least because those policies were never fully implemented and their impact was unclear”, she added.
