What is a SOC code? SOC 2020 and SOC 2010 explained

A SOC code is a 4-digit job code from the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC), which the Office for National Statistics (ONS) maintains. GOV.UK says you need your job’s 4-digit occupation code to find out if it is eligible for a Skilled Worker visa. The Immigration Rules use SOC 2020, which has 412 unit groups. See every code.

What does SOC stand for?

SOC stands for Standard Occupational Classification. ONS says jobs are classified by “skill level” and “skill specialisation”. A job is recognised mainly by its job title. ONS describes the classification as the UK’s current system for grouping jobs. It is used for career information, job matching by employment agencies and government labour market policy.

The Skilled Worker visa uses the classification to decide two things for each job:

• whether the job is eligible
• the “going rate” your salary must meet

The going rate is a set pay figure for that job’s occupation code. Each occupation code has its own yearly going rate. See going rates for the figures.

What is SOC 2020?

SOC 2020 is the current version of the classification. ONS says SOC 2010 was revised to produce SOC 2020. ONS lists three main areas of change:

• a review of how roles are classified as professional or associate professional
• the reclassification of jobs linked to information technology
• splitting into smaller and more precise unit groups

ONS gives the size of each version:

Level	SOC 2010	SOC 2020
Major groups	9	9
Sub-major groups	25	26
Minor groups	90	104
Unit groups	369	412

ONS describes major groups as single-digit and sub-major groups as two-digit. These are the nine SOC 2020 major groups:

Major group	Name
1	Managers, directors and senior officials
2	Professional occupations
3	Associate professional occupations
4	Administrative and secretarial occupations
5	Skilled trades occupations
6	Caring, leisure and other service occupations
7	Sales and customer service occupations
8	Process, plant and machine operatives
9	Elementary occupations

What changed between SOC 2010 and SOC 2020?

GOV.UK’s eligible occupations page says: “Occupation codes changed on 4 April 2024. Some codes may be different from codes you have used previously.”

Appendix Skilled Occupations adds a column called “Equivalent SOC 2010 occupation code(s)” to Tables 2, 2aa, 2a, 3 and 3a. Table 2b has the column for Global Business Mobility routes. The codes are there where the SOC 2010 codes were eligible for the Skilled Worker route before. The Appendix says this is “for ease of matching to the relevant SOC 2020 occupation codes for applicants being sponsored to continue working in the same occupation.”

The match is not always one code to one code. These examples come from the sources:

• Appendix Skilled Occupations, Table 2, lists SOC 2020 code 1111 Chief executives and senior officials. Its equivalent SOC 2010 codes are 1115 and 1172.
• The transitional table in SW 14.5 of Appendix Skilled Worker lists SOC 2010 code 2311 Higher education teaching professionals against three SOC 2020 codes: 2162, 2311 and 2322.
• ONS says SOC 2010 group 1132 Marketing and sales directors was split into two groups in SOC 2020. They are 1132 Marketing, sales and advertising directors and 1133 Public relations and communications directors.

ONS also gives a case where the number changed but the group did not. In ONS’s dual-coded datasets, 100% of cases coded to SOC 2010 unit group 1136 Information technology and telecommunications directors were coded to SOC 2020 unit group 1137 Information technology directors.

How does the Skilled Worker visa use SOC codes?

The rules and GOV.UK use the code in four places:

1. Eligibility. You must be sponsored for a job in an eligible SOC 2020 occupation code (SW 6.1). GOV.UK’s table lists every code as Higher Skilled, Medium Skilled or Ineligible. See the higher skilled, medium skilled and ineligible occupation lists.
2. Salary. Your salary must be at least the going rate for the SOC 2020 code (options A to K of the points table in Appendix Skilled Worker). See salary thresholds.
3. Your application. GOV.UK lists “your job’s occupation code” among the information you give when you apply. See Skilled Worker visa documents.
4. Choice of code. Your sponsor must choose an appropriate SOC 2020 code (SW 6.2). See how to find your SOC code.

A medium skilled code is eligible only in some cases. For example, the job may be on the immigration salary list or the temporary shortage list (GOV.UK). See the medium skilled occupations page for the conditions.

For a plain-English walk-through of each table in the Appendix, see Appendix Skilled Occupations explained.