If you’re a skilled professional with options on both sides of the Atlantic, the choice usually comes down to one question: do you want certainty with a cap on how fast you’ll ever get permanent status, or a shot at something faster that depends on a lottery you don’t control? The UK Skilled Worker visa and the US H-1B solve the same underlying problem — letting an employer sponsor a foreign worker — with almost opposite mechanics. This guide compares them directly so you can tell which one actually fits your situation, not just which country sounds more appealing.
The fundamental structural difference
The UK route is sponsor-led with no lottery and no annual cap. If a Home Office-licensed employer offers you a role that clears the salary threshold, you apply, you get decided on, and in most cases you get the visa — see our full UK Skilled Worker visa guide for the mechanics. There is no queue of candidates competing against each other for a fixed number of slots.
The US route runs the opposite way. Even with a willing employer and a qualifying “specialty occupation” role, you first have to win USCIS’s annual registration lottery, which allocates only 65,000 regular-cap H-1Bs plus 20,000 reserved for US master’s degree holders each fiscal year. Since February 27, 2026, selection has also been wage-weighted rather than purely random — higher-wage registrations get proportionally more entries — which helps senior hires but does nothing for an early-career candidate at a lower wage level. Our H-1B visa guide covers the registration and petition process in full.
Side-by-side: UK Skilled Worker vs US H-1B
| UK Skilled Worker | US H-1B | |
|---|---|---|
| Selection mechanism | None — employer sponsorship only | Annual, wage-weighted lottery (85,000 cap) |
| Annual cap | No cap | 65,000 + 20,000 master’s exemption |
| Sponsor requirement | Home Office–licensed employer | US employer filing Form I-129 |
| Salary gate | General floor or occupation “going rate,” whichever is higher, with reductions for new entrants, PhD roles, and Immigration Salary List occupations | Department of Labor prevailing wage for the role and location |
| Large new fee | None equivalent | New $100,000 supplemental fee on some new petitions — status contested, see our fee guide |
| Max duration before a decision point | Up to 5 years per grant, renewable indefinitely while rules are met | 6-year general cap, extendable only once a green card process is underway |
| Dual intent (can you pursue permanent status while on the visa?) | Not formally required — settlement is simply the endpoint of the same visa | Yes, explicitly |
What it actually costs, and who pays
The two systems split the bill differently. In the UK, the employer carries the sponsor licence fee and the Immigration Skills Charge, but the worker pays the visa application fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge upfront, in a single payment covering the entire length of the visa — often the single biggest line item applicants underestimate. In the US, nearly every standard H-1B fee (registration, I-129 filing, ACWIA training fee, fraud prevention fee) sits with the employer, and regulation bars passing most of them directly to the worker. The disruptive variable is the new $100,000 fee: it has been imposed on some new petitions filed from abroad, vacated by a federal court as an unconstitutional tax, left blocked while the government’s appeal continues, and kept alive policy-wise by a later proclamation and a separately proposed replacement fee — see the USCIS proclamation alert for the current official notice. Nothing on the UK side resembles a single fee of that size.
Path to permanent residence: ILR vs the green card backlog
This is where the two routes diverge most. The UK path is a known quantity: after five continuous years of lawful residence on the Skilled Worker route (plus continuing to meet sponsorship, salary, and knowledge-of-language requirements throughout), you become eligible to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain under current rules on GOV.UK’s Skilled Worker visa guidance. The government has floated extending that qualifying period to ten years for new entrants from 2028 onward, so if you’re planning several years out, confirm the live rule before assuming five years still applies to your cohort.
The US path is structurally different and far more nationality-dependent. Most H-1B holders pursuing a green card go through PERM labor certification, then an I-140 petition, then adjustment of status — a process that commonly runs two-plus years before even reaching the final backlog-dependent stage. For most nationalities that’s broadly manageable within the 6-year H-1B window (extendable once a green card case is pending); for applicants born in India or China, the employment-based category backlog can add years on top, independent of how well-prepared the case is. There is no UK equivalent to that nationality-based queue.
Dependants and family
Both routes let a spouse/partner and children apply as dependants. The UK gives dependent partners full work rights automatically on their own visa. On H-4 status, a dependant spouse’s work authorization is conditional — available only once the principal’s green card case has reached a specific milestone — making the US route meaningfully less certain for a working spouse in the near term.
Which route actually favors you
- You already have a US employer willing to sponsor, and you’re an early-career candidate at a standard wage level: the lottery works against you more than it used to under wage-weighting — budget for multiple registration cycles.
- You have (or can get) a UK job offer that clears the going rate, especially in health, care, or an Immigration Salary List occupation: the UK route is close to deterministic once sponsored.
- You want certainty on when you’ll reach permanent status, and your home country isn’t India or China: either route can work, but the UK’s fixed 5-year runway is easier to plan around than a US timeline that depends on category backlogs.
- Cost-sensitive and the $100,000 fee might apply to your filing: that single line item can outweigh everything else — check the H-1B $100,000 fee guide before assuming either country is cheaper.
- Weighing a third country too: see our Canada vs UK Skilled Worker visa comparison for how a points-based system changes the calculation again.
Frequently asked questions
Is the UK Skilled Worker visa easier to get than an H-1B? In one specific sense, yes: if you have a job offer from a licensed UK sponsor at the right salary, there is no lottery and no annual cap, so getting the visa itself is close to certain. The H-1B adds a random, wage-weighted lottery on top of employer sponsorship, so even a qualified candidate with an offer can simply not be selected. The trade-off is that getting a UK job offer that clears the salary threshold in the first place is often harder than finding a US employer willing to try the H-1B lottery.
Does the $100,000 H-1B fee change the comparison? It raises the stakes but its legal status keeps shifting — it has been imposed, struck down by a federal court as an unlawful tax, left blocked on appeal, and the underlying policy has also been extended by a later proclamation, with a replacement rule separately proposed. There is no equivalent flat fee on the UK side, though UK employers pay their own sponsorship charges and the worker pays a multi-year Immigration Health Surcharge upfront. Confirm the fee’s live status on USCIS.gov before comparing costs for your specific case.
Which route gets me to permanent residence faster? Neither is fast, but they fail in different ways. The UK Skilled Worker route has a fixed, known runway of five years of continuous residence before you can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain, as long as you keep meeting sponsorship and salary rules throughout. The US green card timeline depends heavily on your country of birth — for most nationalities it layers PERM and I-140 processing on top of the 6-year H-1B clock, but for applicants born in India or China specifically, employment-based backlogs can add years beyond that, regardless of how well your case is otherwise prepared.
Can my spouse work on either visa? On the UK Skilled Worker visa, dependent partners get their own visa with full work rights, no separate permit needed. On the H-4 (the H-1B dependant category), work authorization is not automatic — it’s only available to some H-4 spouses, and only once the principal applicant’s green card process has reached a specific stage, so whether your spouse can work in the US depends on where your own case stands, not just on your H-1B status.
This is preparation guidance, not legal advice — salary thresholds, lottery rules, and the $100,000 fee’s legal status are all actively changing, so confirm current figures directly on GOV.UK and USCIS.gov before committing to either route. VisaMet is a pre-launch AI visa assistant, not a law firm — it’s built to run eligibility checks, screen documents, and run mock interviews once you’ve picked a direction, not to replace an immigration attorney for case-specific advice. Join the VisaMet waitlist to get notified when UK and US eligibility screening goes live.
Sources: GOV.UK — Skilled Worker visa, USCIS — H-1B Cap Season, USCIS — H-1B Electronic Registration Process, USCIS — Presidential Proclamation on Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers.