The Home Office has quietly approved a one-year emergency extension of hundreds of Skilled Worker visas held by prison officers from Nigeria and Ghana. Until this week, many of the officers—recruited since 2023 to plug staffing gaps in rural jails—faced dismissal because their £32-35,000 salaries fell below the new £41,700 Skilled-Worker threshold that took effect on 16 December.
Justice Secretary David Lammy and Prisons Minister James Timpson argued that without the foreign officers, some establishments would be forced to curtail regimes or lock prisoners up for 23 hours a day, triggering serious safety risks. Their view prevailed over Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s resistance to any exemptions from the government’s post-Brexit “high wage” migration policy.
Under the temporary measure, affected officers may continue working until 31 December 2026 while ministers conduct an urgent workforce review.
![UK issues emergency one-year visa extension for Nigerian and Ghanaian prison officers]()
For officers and prison operators now scrambling to secure compliant paperwork, VisaHQ’s immigration specialists offer practical support. Through its UK portal (https://www.visahq.com/united-kingdom/), the firm walks applicants through Skilled Worker extensions, salary updates and sponsor licence queries, providing real-time guidance that can reduce processing delays at a moment when every shift counts.
Officials stressed that the concession is a “one off” and warned private and public-sector prison operators to accelerate domestic recruitment.
For employers, the decision removes the immediate threat of mass vacancies but does not resolve how prisons will meet the higher salary floor next year. HR teams are already modelling pay uplifts or re-grading roles to preserve sponsorship eligibility. Trade unions welcomed the reprieve but said it underscored the need for a long-term workforce strategy rather than ‘crisis visas’.
Justice Secretary David Lammy and Prisons Minister James Timpson argued that without the foreign officers, some establishments would be forced to curtail regimes or lock prisoners up for 23 hours a day, triggering serious safety risks. Their view prevailed over Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s resistance to any exemptions from the government’s post-Brexit “high wage” migration policy.
Under the temporary measure, affected officers may continue working until 31 December 2026 while ministers conduct an urgent workforce review.
For officers and prison operators now scrambling to secure compliant paperwork, VisaHQ’s immigration specialists offer practical support. Through its UK portal (https://www.visahq.com/united-kingdom/), the firm walks applicants through Skilled Worker extensions, salary updates and sponsor licence queries, providing real-time guidance that can reduce processing delays at a moment when every shift counts.
Officials stressed that the concession is a “one off” and warned private and public-sector prison operators to accelerate domestic recruitment.
For employers, the decision removes the immediate threat of mass vacancies but does not resolve how prisons will meet the higher salary floor next year. HR teams are already modelling pay uplifts or re-grading roles to preserve sponsorship eligibility. Trade unions welcomed the reprieve but said it underscored the need for a long-term workforce strategy rather than ‘crisis visas’.
