UK's B2 Requirement for Skilled Migration Cuts 8% of Applicants

I wrote recently about the general level of rising language requirements across OECD countries here, and today I wanted to double-click into the UK specifically. In January of 2026 they will raise the English requirement for skilled migration from B1 to B2. What exactly does a B1-->B2 mean? There's a couple ways to dissect this, one interesting angle is how many applicants this change disqualifies on paper.

Lucky for us, IELTS publishes test taker performance data each year (I go deeper on the numbers here), including bucketing out by categories like immigration. Here's the most recent pull from 2024-2025:

While on its face a level change in language is significant (generally schools will cite 6-12 months of study for the average student to make a meaningful jump up from B1 to B2), you can see immediately from the data this change is not that significant in terms of absolute numbers.

Very few test takers score 5.0 or below right now.

Unlike Australia, whose recent requirement change from competent --> proficient english (IELTS 6.0 --> 7.0) knocks out a whopping 30+% of candidates, a B1 --> B2 change (IELTS 4.0 - 5.5 --> 6.5) only takes out 8% of all candidates.

*Obligatory statistics note here that this assumes IELTS immigration data is representative of UK immigration applicant pools, IELTS to CEFR mappings are accurate...and much more*

For the visa pathways that this will affect -- general skilled worker, health and care worker, shortage occupation list, high-growth company, etc. -- I imagine this change will be extremely muted given the type of applicant these occupations attract. A qualified nurse from the Philippines is likely not teetering on the edge between B1 and B2 English.

Also, anecdotally at least, you'll see lots of reports here and elsewhere that a B1 or B2 on paper means very little in terms of day to day communication. Those at international companies in the UK will be the first to tell you that co-workers can "barely speak" English though their written / reading comprehension may be sufficient.

My $0.02 is the bar is very likely to go even higher in the coming years. A meaningful restriction to immigration and a more accurate measure of assimilation potential is found in the C-levels. The UK will have to weigh this against making immigration too restrictive for highly-skilled workers, so there will be lots of folks in the government watching Australia's numbers in the coming years as guidance.