It is true if you consider the unit ball. (Which should be sufficient because $\Pi_{\ker(\lambda T)} = \Pi_{\ker(T)}$ for all $\lambda\neq 0$.)
Also note that $\ker(T) = \ker(T^\ast T)$. I will therefore restrict my attention to normal operators $T$. That may or may not be sufficient for the application you have in mind.
Then we have $\Pi_{\ker(T)} = 1_{\{0\}}(T)$, where we use the measurable functional calculus.
If we define $f_n(x) = \begin{cases} (1-|x|)^n & |x|\leq 1 \\ 0 & |x|\geq 1\end{cases}$ we have a sequence continuous, uniformly bounded functions on $\mathbb{C}$ with $f_n\to 1_{\{0\}}$ pointwise. Therefore $f_n(T) \xrightarrow[n\to\infty]{s.o.t} 1_{\{0\}}(T)$.
It is therefore sufficient to prove that $B_1(L(U))_{sot} \to L(U)_{sot}, T\mapsto f(T)$ is continuous for all continuous $f:\mathbb{R}\to[0,1]$. If $T_i\xrightarrow{s.o.t} T$ and $x\in U$ arbitrary, then approximate $f$ uniformly on the unit disk $\mathbb{D}=\{z\in\mathbb{C} : |z|\leq1\}$ by some polynomial $p$. Now remember that $p(X)-p(Y) = \tilde{p}(X,Y)(X-Y)$ for some polynomial $\tilde{p}$ of degree $\deg(p)-1$ and that $\mathbb{D}$ contains $\sigma(T)$ for all $T\in B_1(L(U))$ so that:
$\begin{align*}
\|f(T)x-f(S)x\| &\leq \|p(T)x-p(S)x\| + 2\epsilon\|x\| \\
&\leq \|\tilde{p}(T,S)\cdot (T-S)x\| + \epsilon\|x\| \\
&\leq const\|(T-S)x\| + 2\epsilon\|x\|
\end{align*}$
Now if $T\xrightarrow{s.o.t}S$, then this proves $\forall\epsilon>0: \limsup_{T\to S} \|f(T)x-f(S)x\|\leq 2\epsilon\|x\|$ to that $f(T)\xrightarrow{s.o.t}f(S)$.
