Skilled-worker visa holders are out-earning British workers
Key Points
- Skilled Worker visa holders in the UK earned a median of £96,000 versus £87,000 for UK citizens in comparable roles, according to a Deel report.
- Software developers on Skilled Worker visas earned just over £112,000, compared with £93,808 for UK citizens in the same roles.
- Visa holders were a median of four years younger than the UK citizens compared.
- Deel attributed the gap to visa processes filtering for scarce skills, not to cost savings.
- The same pattern appeared in the US, where H-1B holders earned $140,000 versus $130,000 for citizens.
Workers in the UK on Skilled Worker visas earn more than British citizens doing comparable jobs, according to a report from the global HR and payroll platform Deel.
The analysis found that Skilled Worker visa holders on Deel’s platform earned a median of £96,000, compared with £87,000 for UK citizens in similar positions. The report said the visa holders were a median of four years younger than the citizens they were compared against.
The gap was wider in technical roles. Software developers on Skilled Worker visas earned just over £112,000, against a median of £93,808 for UK citizens in the same roles, the report found.
Deel attributed the difference to the way work visas are awarded, stating that visa processes filter for skills in short supply and that workers who clear the threshold command higher pay because they fill roles local markets cannot. The report described the effect as driven by scarcity rather than cost savings.
The pattern is not unique to the UK. In the United States, holders of the H-1B visa earned a median of $140,000 compared with $130,000 for US citizens, at a median age of 31.5 versus 37, according to the report. In the United Arab Emirates, Golden Visa holders earned a median of 605,000 AED against 459,000 AED for standard employment visa holders.
The report also identified an occupational split. It said engineering and technical roles in both the UK and US were heavily filled by visa holders, while sales positions were occupied almost entirely by local citizens. More than 99% of salespeople in the relevant employment category on Deel’s platform were local citizens, the report said.
The findings are based on salary data from Deel’s platform, which the company said covers more than 40,000 companies hiring across over 150 countries.
The figures cover annualised base salaries for Employer of Record employees over the period from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.
