The UK’s Temporary Shortage List Dies on 31 December — and the MAC Has Just Recommended Dropping Some Jobs From It

If you are a skilled worker without a degree hoping to be sponsored in the United Kingdom, there is one date you need in front of you: 31 December 2026. That is when the Temporary Shortage List — the only route left for most below-degree-level jobs — is currently scheduled to expire.

And this month the picture got sharper. The Migration Advisory Committee has now published its recommendations, and according to immigration specialists DavidsonMorris, those recommendations do not amend the current list — but they do propose that some occupations on it lose continued access, while some roles not currently on it be added. Nothing has changed in law yet. Everything could change by January.

Here is what is actually true today, what is still undecided, and what you can realistically do in the five months that remain.

Featured-snippet block:

What is the Temporary Shortage List and when does it expire? The Temporary Shortage List (TSL) is a Home Office list of below-degree-level jobs (RQF 3–5) that can still be sponsored on the UK Skilled Worker visa. It began on 22 July 2025 as an interim measure and all current entries are scheduled to expire on 31 December 2026 unless the government extends them.

What the Temporary Shortage List actually is

To understand why this list exists, you need one piece of background.

On 22 July 2025, the UK raised the skill level for most new Skilled Worker applications to degree level — RQF level 6. That single change removed a very large number of jobs from the sponsorship system overnight. Construction, hospitality, and much of social care were affected hardest, because those sectors depend on workers whose skills are real but not certified by a university degree.

The Temporary Shortage List was the government’s partial answer. It is a table of below-degree-level occupations (RQF 3–5) that would not otherwise qualify, but which have been temporarily recognised as necessary because of labour shortages. RSW Law records that roughly 52 occupations were on it at launch — a substantial reduction from the far longer list of roles previously eligible.

Three things it is not:

• It is not the Immigration Salary List. The ISL is a separate list that reduces the general salary threshold to £33,400 instead of £41,700. The two lists run alongside each other, do different jobs, and — importantly — are scheduled to expire on the same date.
• It is not permanent. The word “temporary” is doing real work. It was designed as an interim bridge, not a route.
• It is not open to every low-paid job. The Migration Advisory Committee’s Stage 1 report was explicit that no occupation below RQF 3 gets access to the TSL at all. That includes care and senior care work, which closed to new overseas applicants in July 2025.

If you have been reading about other countries’ quota systems, the structural difference matters: Italy’s Decreto Flussi reserves places years in advance, while the UK’s list can simply lapse.

What the MAC just recommended — and what it doesn’t mean yet

This is the fresh development, and it is where most of the confusion is going to come from over the next few weeks.

The Migration Advisory Committee reviewed the interim list and reported in July 2026. According to DavidsonMorris’s analysis, some occupations currently on the interim list were not recommended for continued access, and some occupations not currently on it were recommended for addition. Construction and engineering roles made up the largest share of the occupations shortlisted for review.

Now the critical part, and please read it twice: MAC recommendations have no legal effect. The committee advises; the government decides. Nothing changes until ministers respond and the Home Office publishes a Statement of Changes to the Immigration Rules amending the list.

What this means in practice:

• The current list is still fully valid and remains a lawful route to the end of 2026.
• Do not assume your role survives into January 2027 just because it is on the list today.
• Do not assume a role is eligible now because the MAC recommended adding it. It is not eligible until the Rules say so.

Anyone telling you a job “will be on the 2027 list” is guessing, and if they are charging you for that guess, walk away.

The dependant rule — the part that breaks families

This is the single most consequential detail on the TSL, and it gets buried in most coverage.

Workers sponsored for a role on the Temporary Shortage List cannot normally bring dependants to the UK. The MAC’s Stage 1 report confirms that dependants are not permitted for new applicants in RQF 3–5 occupations. Your spouse and children generally cannot come with you.

This is not a paperwork obstacle you can style around. It is a policy decision, and it applies for the duration of your permission on that basis. If bringing your family is non-negotiable for you, the TSL is not your route, and you need to be looking at degree-level sponsorship or a different country entirely. Being honest with yourself about this now is far cheaper than discovering it after you have paid an agent.

Time on a Skilled Worker visa can still count towards settlement, which is why some workers accept the trade-off deliberately, planning to bring family later once their status changes. That is a legitimate strategy — but it is a multi-year one, and it depends on rules that are themselves changing.

Salary: where the guides openly contradict each other

Here is something no other page will tell you plainly. The published guidance on TSL salary requirements is inconsistent across reputable sources.

Some firms state that TSL roles carry a lower salary floor around £25,000. Others state that the standard £41,700 general threshold applies with no shortage discount. Both positions are published by qualified UK immigration practitioners. They cannot both be a complete description of the rules.

What appears consistent across the more recent and detailed sources is the structure, rather than a single headline number:

• Each occupation on the TSL has its own going rate set in the Home Office occupation table.
• The salary must satisfy both the applicable general salary threshold and the relevant tradeable-points option under Appendix Skilled Worker.
• Rates are calculated on a 37.5-hour week and must be pro-rated where your actual hours differ.
• Higher and lower rates exist depending on whether your first Certificate of Sponsorship was assigned before or after 4 April 2024.

What you should do with that: do not accept any salary figure from a recruiter, agent or employer verbally. Ask for the exact SOC 2020 occupation code being used, then check that code against the current Home Office table on GOV.UK yourself. If the code and the figure do not match what GOV.UK publishes, the application is at risk of refusal — and you will have paid for it either way.

Only the Home Office publication is authoritative here. Not this article, and not any law firm’s summary of it.

The April 2026 hourly-pay rules almost nobody is reporting

If you are being sponsored in a trade, in hospitality, or in any role paid by the hour, this section is for you.

A Statement of Changes published in March 2026 introduced pay-period and averaging provisions that took effect for applications from 8 April 2026. Two details from the technical analysis by DavidsonMorris and others matter for hourly workers:

• Where an hourly going-rate test applies, pay is assessed by reference to no more than 48 paid hours per week. Extra hours beyond that do not lift you over a threshold.
• If your calculated hourly figure falls below £17.13 per hour, that figure is treated as the applicable going rate.

Why this matters: a common pitch from bad-faith agents is that a low hourly wage is fine because you will “work long hours and the total will be enough.” Under these rules, that arithmetic does not work. The cap on countable hours is designed precisely to stop it.

What to do between now and 31 December 2026

Five months is enough time to act, and not enough time to drift. In rough order of priority:

1. Confirm your SOC 2020 code. Not your job title — the code. Job titles vary between employers; the code is what the Home Office assesses. Find yours, write it down, and check it against both the current TSL and the Immigration Salary List on GOV.UK.

2. Establish whether your route is TSL or ISL. They have different consequences. The ISL gives the reduced £33,400 general threshold. The TSL gives eligibility for a below-degree role but carries the dependant restriction. Knowing which one your job depends on tells you what you actually lose if it lapses.

3. If you have a genuine offer, do not wait. The list currently runs to 31 December 2026, and multiple sources note the government has reserved the right to bring that date forward. An application submitted under current rules is assessed under current rules. Delay is the main risk you control.

4. Verify your sponsor holds a valid licence. Ask directly, and check the published register of licensed sponsors. A Certificate of Sponsorship from an unlicensed or non-compliant employer is worthless, and this is the most common way workers lose money.

5. Build a fallback now, not in December. If your role is one the MAC did not recommend retaining, your realistic alternatives are a degree-level route, a different country, or a qualification that moves you up the skill ladder. All three take months. Start one in parallel.

6. Watch for the Statement of Changes, not the news headlines. The only announcement that changes your position is a Home Office Statement of Changes amending the Immigration Rules. Everything before that is commentary.

If your job comes off the list

It is worth being blunt about what remains, because false hope is expensive.

If your occupation is at RQF 3–5 and appears on neither the TSL nor the ISL after any revision, you cannot be sponsored on the Skilled Worker route at that level. That is the design of the system, not a loophole to be found.

There are transitional protections for people already in the system. Workers who held Skilled Worker permission before 22 July 2025 can, according to sponsorship guidance summaries, continue using the older occupation tables when extending or changing employer until 22 July 2028, provided their permission has been continuous. Care worker codes on the ISL are noted as running to 22 July 2028. These protections apply to people already inside the route — they do not help a first-time applicant from overseas.

For readers weighing alternatives, the comparison worth making is against routes with published, stable quotas rather than lists that can lapse. Australia’s employer-sponsored route recalculated its salary floor on 1 July 2026 , the Gulf states have moved towards skills testing rather than quota closure and fully funded study can be a longer but more durable path into a labour market

How to tell an agent is lying to you about the TSL

Four claims that should end a conversation immediately:

• “Your job is guaranteed to be on the 2027 list.” Nobody knows this. The government has not responded to the MAC yet.
• “You can bring your family on a TSL job.” Dependants are not permitted for new applicants in RQF 3–5 roles.
• “The low salary is fine, you’ll make it up in overtime.” Countable hours are capped at 48 per week for the hourly test.
• “Pay now to reserve a place before the list closes.” There are no places to reserve. The TSL is an eligibility list, not a quota with slots.

If you have seen a rumour you cannot verify, apply the same test we used on the UAE rules earlier this month: find the official publication, or treat it as noise.

Key Takeaways

• The Temporary Shortage List expires 31 December 2026. It began 22 July 2025 as an interim measure with around 52 below-degree-level occupations.
• The MAC reported in July 2026 and recommended dropping some current occupations and adding others — but recommendations carry no legal force until the Home Office amends the Immigration Rules.
• Dependants are not permitted for new applicants in RQF 3–5 roles. This is the trade-off that decides whether the route is viable for you.
• Salary guidance is genuinely inconsistent across published sources. Verify your SOC 2020 code and its going rate directly on GOV.UK.
• Hourly pay is assessed on a maximum of 48 hours per week, with £17.13/hour treated as the rate if the calculation falls below it. Overtime cannot fix a low wage.
• The Immigration Salary List expires on the same date and is due to be abolished; it reduces the general threshold to £33,400.
• Act on a genuine offer now. The government has reserved the right to end the list earlier than December.

FAQ