UK Visa Points Calculator: How the Skilled Worker System Works

The UK Skilled Worker visa runs on a points-based system, but there is no official "calculator" that tells you whether you qualify. What the Home Office publishes is a table of mandatory and tradeable requirements, each worth a specific number of points, and you need 70 in total. Understanding how those points work before you apply is how you avoid submitting an application you cannot win — and forfeiting the non-refundable fees in the process.

How the 70 Points Break Down

The points table has two categories: mandatory points and tradeable points.

Mandatory points (50 total) — all three are required:

These 50 points cannot be substituted or offset by anything else. If you cannot tick all three, you do not qualify, regardless of your qualifications or salary.

Tradeable points (20 required from this group):

The tradeable section sounds like you can mix and match, but in practice most applicants qualify through exactly one of these routes — the standard salary, the new entrant discount, or the reduced threshold for a role on the Immigration Salary List. You need 20 tradeable points, and the most common way to get them is to be offered a salary that meets or exceeds the threshold for your specific occupation code.

What "Going Rate" Means for Your SOC Code

The salary thresholds are not uniform across all jobs. The Home Office assigns a "going rate" to each SOC 2020 occupation code — the benchmark market salary for that role. You must be paid whichever is higher: the general threshold (£41,700 in 2026) or the occupation-specific going rate.

For roles that Pakistani professionals commonly apply for:

• Software developers and programmers (SOC 2134): going rate approximately £49,400
• Civil engineers (SOC 2121): going rate approximately £38,700 — but the general £41,700 threshold applies as the higher figure
• Medical practitioners (SOC 2211): going rate varies significantly by specialty and grade
• Nurses (SOC 2231): going rate approximately £29,000 — but the general threshold applies here too

The Home Office publishes the full going rate list as part of its Immigration Rules Appendix Skilled Occupations. Check the current list rather than relying on figures you find in forums, because thresholds change with each Immigration Rules update.

The English Language Requirement: B2 Since January 2026

The 10 mandatory points for English language are satisfied in one of three ways:

1. A Secure English Language Test (SELT) — IELTS for UKVI, PTE Academic UKVI, or LanguageCert — with scores at CEFR B2 level
2. A degree from a UK or majority English-speaking country
3. An Ecctis (formerly UK NARIC) Statement of Comparability showing your Pakistani degree was taught in English and meets the B2 standard

For Pakistani applicants, the third route carries risk. As of May 2025, Ecctis launched its Qualification and Language Service (QLS), which requires a live identity check using a biometric passport scan. If your passport's chip is damaged or not readable, the identity check fails automatically and you lose the non-refundable £210 fee without receiving any assessment. Sitting the IELTS for UKVI directly in Karachi, Lahore, or Islamabad removes this uncertainty entirely.

Since January 8, 2026, the required level has been B2 — the previous B1 threshold no longer applies. If you have a SELT result at B1 from before the cut-off, it does not satisfy the current requirement.

The Sponsor Licence Check

The 20 points for a licensed sponsor are binary — your employer either holds a valid sponsor licence or they do not. Before you accept a job offer, verify the employer appears on the Home Office's public register of licensed sponsors. The register is searchable at GOV.UK. An employer promising to "get a licence" before you apply is not the same as holding one, and a CoS cannot be issued until the licence is active.

Pakistani applicants frequently encounter informal job offers from UK employers with Pakistani directors or family connections who have not yet obtained a sponsor licence. If the licence is not in place when you submit your application, the mandatory 20 points are missing and the application fails.

What the Points System Does Not Tell You

Reaching 70 points does not guarantee approval. The Home Office also applies a suitability assessment — criminal record checks, immigration history, and a credibility assessment in some cases. Pakistani applicants have a visa grant rate of approximately 66%, compared to 88% for Indian applicants and 91% for Filipino applicants. The gap is largely explained by documentation issues: name inconsistencies between degree certificates and NADRA records, unexplained deposits in bank statements, and English verification failures.

The points table tells you what is required. It does not tell you whether your specific documents will be accepted as evidence of those requirements. That preparation layer — HEC attestation, Ecctis verification, TB test, maintenance fund evidence — is where most Pakistani applications succeed or fail.

The Pakistan to UK Skilled Worker Guide walks through each points requirement in the context of Pakistani documentation, including the common traps with name mismatches, biometric passport issues, and VFS submission logistics.

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