Nepali Sponsored Workers Left Stranded as UK Tightens Skilled Worker Rules and Revokes Employer Licences

A growing number of Nepali nationals who converted from UK student and Graduate visas onto Skilled Worker sponsorship are reporting exploitation by employers and sudden loss of status after the Home Office suspended or revoked their sponsors' licences — a squeeze OnlineKhabar's London correspondent documents through named case studies, as salary thresholds and compliance rules tighten sharply.

The article centres on Sadikshya Thapa, who completed an MBA at York St John University in 2021 and moved onto a Skilled Worker visa in January 2024 after securing sponsorship from an Indian-owned London restaurant, paying over £4,500 to a solicitor at her employer's request. She alleges she was paid a flat £400 per week regardless of hours worked (against a contracted £21,500 annual salary for 37 hours), received no payslips for most of her employment beyond three months in 2024, discovered she had never actually been enrolled in the NEST pension scheme despite deductions appearing on her payslips, and received no paid holiday across roughly 26 months of work. She has now filed a case with a British employment tribunal. A second case, a restaurant manager named "Isha" (name changed), describes spending roughly Rs 2.5 million (about £14,000) extending her visa twice, only to have her employer's sponsor licence suspended by the Home Office — leaving her with 60 days to find a new sponsor paying above the current £41,700 threshold, a bar immigration adviser Bishnu Kharel of Visa Quest UK calls "almost impossible" for most hospitality roles to clear.

The structural cause, per Home Office data cited in the piece, is a series of rule changes: from July 2025 the qualifying salary threshold rose to £41,700 with a bachelor's-level qualification requirement (up from £38,700 and A-level equivalent), and dozens of non-graduate occupations — including shop and restaurant management — were removed from the eligible list entirely. Skilled Worker visa issuance fell 30% year-on-year to 68,067 in the twelve months to March 2026. A Home Office spokesperson confirmed to the BBC that "new Skilled Worker visas will no longer be available for more than 100 occupations." Immigration advisers quoted in the piece say Home Office spot-checks have found employers failing to pay agreed salaries, skipping holiday pay and weekly rest days, and assigning sponsored workers duties inconsistent with their Certificate of Sponsorship — exposing workers, not just employers, to visa-ending consequences through no fault of their own. The pattern raises a pointed community debate: several Nepali-owned business operators quoted anonymously say they now avoid sponsoring workers at all, citing both compliance risk and reputational exposure from cases of alleged exploitation within the community itself.