Hiring a Japanese Chef in the UK After the 2025 Visa Changes

For most of the last decade, a UK Japanese restaurant that needed an experienced chef from Japan could sponsor one on a Skilled Worker visa. That door is now effectively shut for new hires. This guide is about what is left: the people who can legally work in your kitchen today, how long they can stay, and how to plan a team around them.

1. What changed on 22 July 2025

The Home Office classifies chefs (SOC code 5434) as a "medium skilled" occupation. Cooks (5435) are not eligible for Skilled Worker sponsorship at all. Since 22 July 2025, a medium skilled job can only be sponsored if it appears on the Immigration Salary List or the Temporary Shortage List, or if the worker is extending a visa and received their first certificate of sponsorship before that date.

Chefs are on neither list. In practice, that means a restaurant cannot sponsor a chef coming to the UK for the first time, however senior the role and whatever you are willing to pay. Even when sponsorship was possible, the general salary threshold of £41,700 and the chef going rate of £33,400 applied, along with a sponsor licence (£611 for a small sponsor), a £525 certificate of sponsorship, the Immigration Skills Charge (£480 a year for a small sponsor) and the worker's Immigration Health Surcharge of £1,035 a year.

The Home Office's own sponsor guidance (version 04/26) calls the transitional arrangements for existing workers temporary and says they "will be reviewed in due course". Build your plan on the assumption that the closed door stays closed.

2. Where your next Japanese chef can come from

Every row except the last is someone you can legally employ, and only the existing Skilled Worker row needs your sponsorship. Your job has changed from immigration project manager to recruiter. That is cheaper, but it means competing for a pool that other restaurants are also fishing in.

3. Youth Mobility Scheme

This is the most important route for Japanese restaurants, and it has become easier, not harder. Japan's allocation is 6,000 places a year, and since 31 January 2024 Japanese nationals no longer go through a ballot: they can apply at any time. The visa lasts up to 24 months, and the holder can work in most jobs without any sponsor.

The limits are the age band (18 to 30 when applying) and the fact that the scheme is once only. A good YMS hire gives you up to two years, and you should plan for the departure from the first day. We cover the details, including costs and how to run the right to work check, in our Youth Mobility Scheme guide for restaurants.

4. Graduates and students

International graduates of UK universities can apply for the Graduate visa, which allows work in most jobs. It lasts 2 years for applications made on or before 31 December 2026, and 18 months for applications from 1 January 2027. The application fee is £937 and the holder pays the health surcharge.

Graduates are rarely trained chefs, but some Japanese graduates have worked in Japanese kitchens through their studies and want to stay in food. Students on a Student visa can also work limited hours, depending on their course and whether it is term time. Check the conditions on their visa before you roster them, because the limits are theirs to keep and your civil penalty if they break them.

5. Partners of other visa holders

The partner of a Skilled Worker visa holder can work in any job except as a sportsperson or coach. London in particular has Japanese professionals on sponsored visas whose partners have kitchen or hospitality experience.

One restriction to know: since 22 July 2025, people newly sponsored in medium skilled jobs cannot bring a partner or children from outside the UK unless they have been continuously employed in a medium skilled Skilled Worker job since before that date. This does not affect partners of people in graduate-level jobs, who are the larger group.

6. Chefs already on a Skilled Worker visa

A chef who was granted Skilled Worker permission under the rules in force before 22 July 2025, and has held continuous Skilled Worker permission since, can apply for further permission "either to continue with the same sponsor or to work for a different sponsor", according to the Home Office sponsor guidance. The occupation still has to be an eligible one.

That makes this small group valuable. If you hold a sponsor licence, a chef in this position can move to you. The catch is that the pool shrinks every year, as people settle, leave, or let their permission lapse. Do not let an existing sponsored chef's visa expire by accident: a gap in permission can end their transitional protection permanently.

7. Settled residents and training your own

Japan's foreign ministry counted 62,270 Japanese nationals living in the UK as of 1 October 2025, the sixth largest Japanese community abroad. Some have settled status, British partners, or long-term permission, and some of them are cooks. They will not all be looking for work at the same time, which is why a steady presence on the channels they use matters more than one big campaign. See where Japanese chefs look for jobs abroad.

The other lever is internal. If your head chef can only be replaced by a new arrival from Japan, the business has a single point of failure. A structured training path for local cooks, with a Japanese chef teaching technique, sauces and knife work, is now a staffing strategy rather than a nice idea. Our guide to training local staff in Japanese cuisine covers how to set one up.

8. What the ONS says chefs earn

The Office for National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (2025, provisional) puts the median gross annual pay of a full-time chef in the UK at £30,010. For London the figure is higher:

These are medians for all chefs, not Japanese specialists. A chef who can run a sushi counter or an omakase service is a small subset of this market and usually commands more. Use the ONS numbers as a floor for your offer, not a target. Our sushi chef salary comparison puts UK pay alongside other countries.

Demand is not going away. The ONS estimated 70,000 vacancies in accommodation and food services in July 2026, and there is no official staff turnover statistic for UK hospitality to benchmark against.

9. A hiring plan that fits the new rules

1. Audit your current team's permissions. List every non-British member of the kitchen, their visa type and expiry. Mark anyone on transitional Skilled Worker protection.
2. Build a YMS pipeline. Expect a two-year tenure, so hire the next person while the current one is still with you. Overlap is how knowledge gets passed on.
3. Make the senior role a local one. Your head chef or sushi lead should ideally be someone with permanent status, supported by YMS hires, not the other way round.
4. Advertise where Japanese cooks already in the UK look. Write the ad in Japanese as well as English, and state that you cannot sponsor, so you only hear from people who can start. See writing a job ad for chefs.
5. Run the right to work check properly, every time, and repeat it before any time-limited permission expires.
6. Pay above the ONS median for the skills you need. The people who can legally work for you have options.

If you are hiring now, you can post the role to Japanese-speaking chefs through WashokuJob for restaurants.

General information gathered from official sources in September 2026, not legal or immigration advice. UK immigration rules change often; check the linked GOV.UK pages or speak to a regulated adviser before acting.