Spouse Skilled Worker to ILR/Citizenship

I currently hold ILR and will be making my citizenship application later this month. My question is about my wife who currently holds a skilled worker visa (has for 3 years) and what happens should she loose her job/visa. When I hold ILR it was clear that she could become my dependent (her clock towards ILR would of course reset) but that change seemed to be reasonable if needed. However, when/if I obtain citizenship what would be her pathway from her current visa type to stay in the country? Can she simply apply for british citizenship as I would hold it or is there some other obvious mechanism pathway? Just want to make sure we're not setting ourselves up for something troubling versus letting her also get to ILR before I make my citizenship application. Thank you

Can she simply apply for british citizenship as I would hold it

No. She needs ILR first. The route to ILR is irrelevant.

She needs 5 years residence on skilled worker visa before she can apply for ILR.

She can still switch to FLR M spouse visa if she meets all the requirements but her 5 year ILR clock will reset to zero.

Great, thank you for the information.

Though most people think of the immigration journey as being one journey, it in fact has two legs, kind of like when one has to change from a train to a bus or car at the station to get to the final destination.

Think of the immigration pathway as the train journey. It has many stops (renewals) and terminates at ILR. Like a train terminus, multiple routes of greatly varying lengths (from the relatively short Global Talent visa to the five years spouse/work visas to the 10 year Long Residence route) terminate at ILR.

Naturalisation is the bus journey, which starts at ILR. That is to say that there is no way to get onto this bus journey except after ILR.

It is a separate journey from the viewpoint of the transport provider, even though for you it is one journey. Hence, it has separate rules, separate procedures and separate requirements from ILR, just as a bus journey has different rules and conditions from a train journey.

It is possible to get off at ILR and not proceed to the bus or to face delays (from the standard one year delay to a possible 10 year block for failing the good character requirement, etc) in getting onto the bus/naturalisation journey.

Does that help you visualise the entire process?

To summarise, to naturalise as an adult, ILR is one of the minimum requirements and can't be bypassed.