Getting ILR as a Skilled Worker: how does your dependant partner extend?
When you are granted indefinite leave to remain (ILR) as the main Skilled Worker applicant, your partner does not lose their right to stay in the UK. Under Appendix Skilled Worker, a dependent partner can continue to extend their visa as your Skilled Worker dependant even after you settle — they do not have to switch to a spouse visa or any other route. Your husband simply applies to extend his dependant permission before his current visa expires, and then applies for his own ILR once he has completed 5 years' continuous residence as your dependent partner. Your Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) expiry in December 2027 is irrelevant to his extension, because once you hold ILR you are settled and no longer a sponsored worker.
- A dependent partner can keep extending on the Skilled Worker route after the main applicant settles — Immigration Rules SW 29.1(c).
- The partner needs 5 continuous years as a dependant before their own ILR — SW 42.1.
- Your CoS expiry stops mattering once you have ILR — you are settled, not sponsored.
- He should apply before his current permission expires to avoid a gap in his leave.
Your partner stays on the Skilled Worker dependant route
The most common worry here is that when the main applicant settles, the sponsor "no longer holds a Skilled Worker visa", so the dependant has nothing to be a dependant of. That is not how the rules work. Appendix Skilled Worker specifically allows a partner to extend where the person they depend on has already settled or become British.
The relevant rule, SW 29.1(c), lets a partner extend where "P is settled or has become a British citizen, providing P had permission on the Skilled Worker route when they settled and the applicant had permission as P's partner at that time". In plain terms: because you were on the Skilled Worker route when you got ILR, and your husband was your dependent partner at that point, he can carry on extending as your dependant.
GOV.UK confirms this in almost the same words — your partner "can continue to extend their visa as your Skilled Worker, Health and Care Worker or T2 dependant, even after you get indefinite leave to remain". He does not need to move onto an Appendix FM partner visa, which would usually cost more and start a different clock.
When your partner can apply for their own ILR
Your husband's settlement runs on his own timetable, not yours. A dependent partner must complete 5 years' continuous residence in the UK as a dependant before qualifying for ILR (SW 42.1), and must not have spent more than 180 days outside the UK in any rolling 12-month period during that time.
The 5-year clock is his. Even though your own Skilled Worker route may have let you settle at a particular point, the qualifying period for a dependent partner is a straight 5 years regardless of when the main applicant settles. So if he is "not yet eligible", he keeps extending until he reaches his own 5-year mark, then submits his ILR application on form SET(O) at that stage. For how the two timelines interact, see when your dependants can apply for ILR on the Skilled Worker route.
Why your Certificate of Sponsorship expiry no longer matters
A Certificate of Sponsorship belongs to your employment as the sponsored worker. It governs your permission, not your husband's, and it only matters while you are on the Skilled Worker route. Once you are granted ILR you are settled — no longer sponsored, no longer needing a CoS — and the December 2027 expiry becomes irrelevant to both of you.
Your husband's extension is assessed against the dependant rules in Appendix Skilled Worker, not against your CoS. The caseworker needs to see that you settled from the Skilled Worker route and that he was your partner at that time; your CoS end date does not feature in his application at all.
Do not let your husband's current permission lapse while you sort out your own ILR. If his visa expires before he applies to extend, he becomes an overstayer, which can break his continuous residence and damage a future ILR or citizenship application. Apply to extend his dependant visa before its expiry date — not after you receive your own ILR decision.
Timing: extend before the current visa expires
There is no need to wait for your ILR to be granted before your husband acts. He can apply to extend at any time before his current permission expires, and he can do so separately from you. If you would rather line the applications up, you can weigh the trade-offs of applying together or separately in whether Skilled Worker applicants and dependants should apply for ILR together or separately.
Because the exact answer depends on your grant dates and residence history, check your husband's continuous-residence position and permission end date against the official guidance before you file. If anything is borderline — a long absence, an earlier gap in leave, or an imminent expiry — take proper advice rather than assume.