Skilled Occupation SOC Codes: All You Need To Know

When applying to sponsor a worker, an organisation will need to provide details of the role. One of the tasks is to select the correct standard occupational classification ('SOC') code for the role. In this article we look at how to find the right SOC code, what happens if a wrong SOC code is used and some of the terms frequently used in the context of SOC codes.

What are SOC codes?

Appendix Skilled Occupations to the Immigration Rules provides information about each occupation code, including related job titles and the going rate for the code. In the Appendix, there is a list of four-digit occupation codes developed by the Office for National Statistics. This Appendix applies to Skilled Worker, Global Business Mobility and Scale-up routes. In Table 1, you will see that the going rates are per year based on a 39 hour working week.