Under the government's plan, the usual wait for ILR becomes 10 years. It stays 5 years for earnings of at least £50,271 in 3 of the last 5 years, 30 public service jobs, a British connection, and care workers who came before May 2025 and meet the conditions. There is no start date yet.
Read the article on the earned settlement plan
The narration, word for word. The narration uses a synthetic voice.
Arjun was 10 months from settling in the UK. His son made a paper chain to count them down. Is it still 10 months? At 4:09 on 2 November, the government published its final plan for settlement. Arjun's phone lit up. If you're on a work, care, family or graduate visa, you've asked the same thing about your own ILR date. We read every page of the plan at ImmigrationGPT. That's immigrationgpt.co.uk, where we keep a living article on it. The government's own estimate: over 500,000 people will become eligible to settle later than they would have. One group keeps 5 years on a salary of £25,000. Someone in this video has 2 years in the UK she's sure will count towards 5. They never did. And one sentence on page 37 decides whether the rules you came under still count.
Arjun's phone isn't the only one. He's a mechanical engineer in Derby, on a Skilled Worker visa. In Manchester, Mei has a Graduate visa and a new job offer. In Leicester, Grace is a nurse, halfway through a shift on the ward. In Stoke-on-Trent, Blessing is on the second of her two buses to the care home where she works. And in Norwich, Ana is closing up the bakery. She's married to a British man. All 5 are made up. The rules and the numbers are real. The plan sorts people by group, not by name. Here's the map.
Today, most people on a route to settlement can apply after 5 years. Under the plan, called earned settlement, the starting point is 10. Picture a road with 4 exits: 3 years, 5, 10 and 20. Everyone pays the same toll to get on. No criminal record. No debt to the government, NHS debt and unpaid tax included. English at B2, about A level standard in a foreign language. Today it's B1. And the Life in the UK test. Higher pay or public service can't make up for any of those. The signs carry odd numbers. £12,571. £50,271. £125,141. Each one is the first pound of an income tax band. If the tax bands move, these move with them. 10 years is the default. It needs at least £12,571 a year, in 5 of the last 7 years. 5 years needs £50,271. 3 years needs £125,141. And 20 years is the slow road. A qualifying immigration breach as an adult, like overstaying a visa, puts you there, whatever you earn. So does using specified public funds in the 5 years before you apply. Unless you then do 5 years in a row on a qualifying route without them.
Arjun has been a Skilled Worker since September, 4 years ago. He earns £48,000. For Skilled Workers under the higher earnings line, the default is 10 years. Arjun's £48,000 is £2,271 under it. Arjun: "Most engineers I know earn about what I do." Pause and guess. GOV.UK's main table of Skilled Worker going rates has 91 job codes, set from median pay. How many reach the 5-year line? 37. 54 are under it, his own among them. Mechanical engineers: £46,800. That's our count, from GOV.UK's table, which is due to change next spring. But the 5-year line has a detail that's easy to miss. You don't need it every year. You need £50,271 in 3 of the 5 years before you apply. 2 can be lower. The plan calls this best years. A year of parental leave, or a year off sick, doesn't on its own push someone onto a longer road. Arjun's wife Priya came with him, and works part-time at a pharmacy. Kabir came too. A partner who came with the main applicant can settle at the same time, if they meet the requirements. One who joins later has to complete the same period. Couples can add their pay together for the minimum. The household line is £25,142. Children under 18 settle with their parents, without the income, English or Life in the UK test requirements. Arjun: "But we came under the 5-year rules. They can't change that for people already here. Can they?" Keep that question. We'll come back to it.
Mei is 24. She came to Manchester as a student 2 years ago, and she's been on a Graduate visa since January. This autumn she got the offer she wanted. Junior software developer, £39,000, on a Skilled Worker visa. She's sure her 2 years already count towards the 5. They don't. Under the plan, time on Student and Graduate visas doesn't count towards settlement at all. And they never counted towards the 5-year Skilled Worker path. Only through the 10-year long residence route. And long residence closes. So for her group, the count starts on the Skilled Worker visa. Mei: "So my clock hasn't even started." Then look round her new office. Her offer sits under the 5-year line. The going rate for her job, £54,700, sits over it. Her team lead is on £60,000. The head of engineering is on £130,000. Both are Skilled Workers too. One office. Each salary points at a different exit, if it holds for enough of the right years.
Grace came to Leicester on a Health and Care Worker visa in January, the year before last. She's a nurse. Her group gets 5 years without the higher earnings line. The plan names 30 health and education jobs paid on national pay scales. Doctors, nurses, teachers and social workers are among them. The list is in Annex C. Grace: "Nursing's on the list. I checked it twice." But public service doesn't skip the toll. B2 English, the Life in the UK test, no government debt, no criminal record. All still apply. Below degree level, it's a one-off. Nursing auxiliaries and teaching assistants on national pay scales keep 5 years only if they came before the White Paper, in May last year. May last year. Hold on to that date.
Ana came to Norwich 2 years ago on a partner visa. Her husband is British. Her group keeps 5 years. The plan calls it a British connection: partners, parents and children of British citizens, and UK Ancestry. What changes for her group is the English. B2 at settlement, where today it's B1. Ana: "B1 took me a year of evening classes." There's a catch. A partner visa granted on human rights grounds, outside the usual rules, doesn't count for the 5-year path.
Blessing came to the UK as a student 4 years ago. 3 years ago, in November, she switched into care work. Her group is the one from the start. Care workers who came or switched in before the White Paper in May last year keep the 5-year path. They need a salary of at least £25,000, and to meet the sponsorship and job requirements. The new toll applies too, B2 English included. And for care workers in her group who don't qualify after 5 years, there's a second chance. A further 5-year Health and Care visa, for genuine work in the sector, still with no recourse to public funds. Then they can apply again. The government counts 196,000 care workers in this group. It thinks around 50,000 may not meet the requirements, and calls that uncertain. From 1 February next year, care workers whose sponsor loses its licence get up to 120 days to find a job offer. Then 60 more to sort out their visa. The date cuts both ways. A care worker who switched in last June is on the 10-year road. The government counts about 6,000 of them. Blessing: "Same job. Same care home. Different road." And that's what stops Arjun. If everyone kept the rules they came under, why would her group need an arrangement of its own?
That night, Arjun scrolls to page 37. Unless transitional provisions are made, applications are ordinarily considered under the rules in force on the date of the settlement decision. Being in the UK does not give someone an automatic right to settle under the rules that existed when they first arrived. That's what the care worker arrangement is: a transitional rule, for named groups. The plan says these don't create a wider exemption for everyone already here. Arjun: "So it's not the day you arrive that counts. It's the day they decide." Today, the rules in force are still the current ones. The new ones have no start date. So for Skilled Workers like Arjun, a lot rests on two things nobody has published yet. When the new rules start, and how people already here move across.
Here's what is settled. People who already have settlement keep it. And here's what isn't decided yet. No start date. No Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules has been published for it. Before it starts, the government says it will publish technical guidance and a full impact assessment. Which public funds count, and the safeguards, are still to come. So is the exact list of immigration breaches. And the plan doesn't say how earnings are counted. Bonuses, a second job, self-employment: none of it is spelled out yet. So every number in this video is the plan, not the rules yet.
Blessing books her B2 English test. Ana finds a class one level up. Grace saves Annex C to her phone. Mei writes her start date at the top of a new page. These are facts, not advice. A regulated adviser can advise on your own case. Our living article on the plan is free at immigrationgpt.co.uk. When GOV.UK publishes a start date, we update it. In Derby, Kabir asks if he should still tear off a loop next month. Arjun: "Keep going. We'll know more when they set the date." Is it still 10 months? Under today's rules, his 5 years are still next September. But the rules that count are the ones on the day of the decision, and nobody has set that day. The chain stays on the fridge. 10 loops, and a star on the last one.
ImmigrationGPT shares information from GOV.UK and the Home Office register of licensed sponsors. It is not immigration advice. A regulated adviser can advise on your own case.