Closed petition Increase the additional hours that migrants on Skilled Worker Visas can work

Closed on 10 February 2024

The Government should permit migrants on Skilled Worker Visas to work more hours in second jobs than the current limit of 20 hours a week. Ideally, we want the hours to be unrestricted but doubling or otherwise increasing them would be a welcome improvement.

Currently, migrants on Skilled Worker Visas are only allowed to work up to 20 hours in second jobs, even if it is in the same occupation code, or on the shortage occupation list. To put this into context, a single night shift can be 12 hours long, meaning two night shifts (24 hours in total) in a week would have already taken one over the 20-hour a week limit imposed by Government. This shows how stringent the current limit is.

Also, there is an abundance of work, especially on the Health and Care sector, as well as an abundance of qualified and willing migrants for said jobs, but unfortunately they cannot take on much of this work because of the 20-hour limit.