Briefing: the seasonal worker visa
5 June 2025
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The seasonal worker route is a popular way to work in the UK temporarily. Migration statistics in 2024 confirm that 46% of all temporary worker visas were
The seasonal worker route is a popular way to work in the UK temporarily. Migration statistics in 2024 confirm that 46% of all temporary worker visas were
The High Court in R (TJ Trading Express Limited) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 1274 (Admin) held that before revoking
What is a creative worker visa and why is this route useful? A creative worker is someone who can make a unique contribution to the
This guide outlines the steps UK employers and their foreign national employees should take when a visa is approaching expiry and a new immigration application
Sponsoring a foreign worker isn’t cheap. Application fees and visa taxes typically run to thousands of pounds. Some of the fees are levied directly on
Thank you to everyone who attended our webinar, ‘The “Self-Sponsorship” route for overseas businesses establishing a UK presence’. We had a fantastic turnout and received
This morning I did a quick post to let everyone know that the immigration white paper had been published, along with the summary recommendations from
A Youth Mobility visa enables people aged 18-30 (or 35 for some countries) to live and work in the UK, usually for up to two
Employers in the UK are required to conduct right to work checks to ensure that their employees have the legal right to work. If the
The Court of Appeal has rejected a student’s argument that the Home Secretary should have exercised discretion and considered his application to switch into the
Sponsorship compliance is high on the Home Office’s agenda. Suspensions and revocations are on the rise and the Government has made cracking down on ‘shameless
The Court of Appeal confirmed in Prestwick Care Ltd & Ors, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025]
The Government Authorised Exchange category of the immigration rules is one of the least known of all the UK’s visa options. It can be found
The Scale-up visa is a flexible immigration route designed to propel high-growth businesses by allowing them to attract top talent to the UK. It was
The government have ramped up its effort to crack down on illegal working, resulting in a surge of enforcement activity throughout England. We are certainly
International students are worth billions to the UK economy in higher education fees and indirect expenditure, benefitting local communities financially as well as enriching them
A care home operator has successfully challenged the Home Office’s decision to refuse a defined certificate of sponsorship request on the grounds that the care
Once a charitable organisation has been granted a licence under the Charity Worker route, it will be able to begin sponsoring workers under this route. The
The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal where it was argued that there had been procedural unfairness in a refusal of further leave to
The government published a number of significant changes to their guidance for work sponsors on 31 December 2024 and 1 January 2025. The affected guidance includes:
The Charity Worker route is for voluntary workers aged 18 or over who wish to come to the UK to do work for a recognised
The UK has two sponsored work routes for religious workers: the T2 minister of religion visa for those with a key leading role in their
The graduate immigration route is for international students who have completed a degree or other higher educational qualification in the UK. It allows people who
The UK’s global talent visa went live in February 2020, replacing the old Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) route. Since that time, it has secured its
The high potential individual visa is aimed at individuals who have graduated from a top global university. There is considerable international competition to attract these
The Court of Appeal has held that “a simple statement to an employer that one of the people working for it has no right to
The skilled worker visa is the main work route under the points based immigration system. It was introduced on 1 December 2020, replacing a visa
The UK immigration system as it applies to the creative sector is a complicated hodgepodge of different categories, each with their own requirements and restrictions,
As the crackdown on sponsor licence compliance continues, in R (Tendercare Management Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 2154 (Admin) the
Settlement or indefinite leave to remain is often the end goal for many immigration applicants. Settlement can often only be obtained after a certain number
In April 2024, significant changes were made to the salary thresholds for the skilled worker visa route. The general salary threshold rose from £26,200 to
The Home Secretary commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) on 6 August 2024 to begin investigating the use of international recruitment and immigration in particular
In this post I explain the variety of reasons that it is a very bad idea to submit a fee waiver application purely for the
An applicant has successfully challenged the Home Office’s refusal of his application for further leave to remain in the old Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) route after
In April this year, the government introduced significant increases to the qualifying salary rates for the skilled worker and global business mobility routes. While employers
The Home Office has confirmed via a notification on the sponsorship management system that some salary going rates (i.e. the salary requirements specific to those
Often corporate immigration advice can feel as though it boils down to Skilled Worker applications and little else. In amongst that “little else” is the UK
In the midst of time last year, it was announced that Tech Nation would cease operations on 31 March 2023, which we reported on here.
Being somewhat of a dinosaur (55) I can remember when the UK had a work permit system specific to entertainers and sportspeople. A little team
The High Court has again confirmed that mandatory sponsor licence revocation is, indeed, mandatory. One Trees Estates Ltd, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary
The seasonal worker route is a popular way to work in the UK temporarily. Migration statistics in 2024 confirm that 46% of all temporary worker visas were granted for seasonal work. The duration is short and doesn’t lead to settlement in the UK. Seasonal worker schemes were launched after the Second World...
The High Court in R (TJ Trading Express Limited) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 1274 (Admin) held that before revoking the sponsor’s licence for non-compliance, the Home Office should have given the business an opportunity to make representations in response to its allegations. Background The...
What is a creative worker visa and why is this route useful? A creative worker is someone who can make a unique contribution to the country’s rich cultural life, for example, as an artist, dancer, musician or entertainer, or as a model contributing to the fashion industry. The Creative Worker...
This guide outlines the steps UK employers and their foreign national employees should take when a visa is approaching expiry and a new immigration application is pending. I’ve co-written this with my employment specialist colleague Gillian Moore, because often there is a real tension between the advice an employee may...
Sponsoring a foreign worker isn’t cheap. Application fees and visa taxes typically run to thousands of pounds. Some of the fees are levied directly on the employer, while others fall on the worker applying for the visa. Many employers cover them all rather than leaving the worker to pay substantial...
Thank you to everyone who attended our webinar, ‘The “Self-Sponsorship” route for overseas businesses establishing a UK presence’. We had a fantastic turnout and received a huge number of thoughtful questions (nearly 100!). Time constraints made it impossible to answer all questions live, but our host Paolo Barbato has kindly...
This morning I did a quick post to let everyone know that the immigration white paper had been published, along with the summary recommendations from the paper. Let’s now take a closer look at what is being proposed for workers and students. I have looked separately at the rest of...
A Youth Mobility visa enables people aged 18-30 (or 35 for some countries) to live and work in the UK, usually for up to two years. It used to be called the “working holiday-maker scheme” and some people may still call it that. Crucially, there is no requirement to have...
Employers in the UK are required to conduct right to work checks to ensure that their employees have the legal right to work. If the employer knows, or ought to know, that the individual does not have permission to work, they can face civil penalties of up to £60,000 and...
The Court of Appeal has rejected a student’s argument that the Home Secretary should have exercised discretion and considered his application to switch into the skilled worker route, instead of rejecting it for not meeting the validity requirements after a rule change came into force prohibiting such a move. The...
Sponsorship compliance is high on the Home Office’s agenda. Suspensions and revocations are on the rise and the Government has made cracking down on ‘shameless employers’ central to their future immigration policy. The impending government white paper should also set out tougher sanctions for employers who fail to meet their...
The Court of Appeal confirmed in Prestwick Care Ltd & Ors, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 184 that the Home Office is not under a duty to carry out an assessment of the impact of sponsor licence revocation. The...
The Government Authorised Exchange category of the immigration rules is one of the least known of all the UK’s visa options. It can be found in Appendix Temporary Work – Government Authorised Exchange to the immigration rules. The temporary work routes offer visas for temporary workers. According to the original...
The Scale-up visa is a flexible immigration route designed to propel high-growth businesses by allowing them to attract top talent to the UK. It was introduced in 2022 and was presented as a visa that will fill essential skills gaps, help UK businesses grow, and boost the UK’s economy. In...
The government have ramped up its effort to crack down on illegal working, resulting in a surge of enforcement activity throughout England. We are certainly seeing a rise in the number of civil penalties being issued. The Home Office can apply tough sanctions if it discovers that an employer is...
International students are worth billions to the UK economy in higher education fees and indirect expenditure, benefitting local communities financially as well as enriching them in non-economic terms. Being able to attract overseas students is crucial to the economic viability of many education providers, but only those with a sponsor...
A care home operator has successfully challenged the Home Office’s decision to refuse a defined certificate of sponsorship request on the grounds that the care home could not provide official contracts for guaranteed hours of work to show that the jobs were genuine. The High Court’s decision in Hartford Care...
Once a charitable organisation has been granted a licence under the Charity Worker route, it will be able to begin sponsoring workers under this route. The work needs to be an eligible type of work and the applicant needs to meet various requirements in order to be eligible for sponsorship...
The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal where it was argued that there had been procedural unfairness in a refusal of further leave to remain because the appellant had not been expressly told that his employer’s sponsor licence had been revoked. The appeal actually stemmed from refusal of a...
The government published a number of significant changes to their guidance for work sponsors on 31 December 2024 and 1 January 2025. The affected guidance includes: Although several guidance documents have been updated, in many instances these updates relate to the same changes and are to reflect updates elsewhere in...
The Charity Worker route is for voluntary workers aged 18 or over who wish to come to the UK to do work for a recognised charitable organisation. Work must be unpaid and fieldwork which contributes directly to the achievement or advancement of the sponsor’s charitable purpose – for example, in...
The UK has two sponsored work routes for religious workers: the T2 minister of religion visa for those with a key leading role in their faith-based organisation or religious order in the UK, and the temporary religious worker visa for those who support the activities of religious institutions in the...
The graduate immigration route is for international students who have completed a degree or other higher educational qualification in the UK. It allows people who previously had a student visa to: There is no requirement to have a sponsor in order to apply under this route. The application costs £822...
The UK’s global talent visa went live in February 2020, replacing the old Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) route. Since that time, it has secured its place as a badge of honour for those deemed talented enough to obtain one. And with many applicants able to obtain indefinite leave to remain...
The high potential individual visa is aimed at individuals who have graduated from a top global university. There is considerable international competition to attract these sorts of individuals, who ministers like to call the “brightest and best”. A visa aimed at them can therefore be seen as a pitch: a...
The Court of Appeal has held that “a simple statement to an employer that one of the people working for it has no right to work” is sufficient for the purposes of section 15(1) Immigration Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 when issuing an employer penalty notice. The case is Akbars...
The skilled worker visa is the main work route under the points based immigration system. It was introduced on 1 December 2020, replacing a visa called Tier 2 (General). Joanna has previously explained the legal requirements for this visa. For example, the role must have a skill level of at...
The UK immigration system as it applies to the creative sector is a complicated hodgepodge of different categories, each with their own requirements and restrictions, advantages and disadvantages. These include visitor-based routes, such as creative visitors, permit free festivals and permitted paid engagements, as well as the now ubiquitous sponsored...
As the crackdown on sponsor licence compliance continues, in R (Tendercare Management Ltd) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 2154 (Admin) the High Court has considered another case involving the revocation of a care home operator’s sponsor licence. In contrast to previous revocation cases we looked...
Settlement or indefinite leave to remain is often the end goal for many immigration applicants. Settlement can often only be obtained after a certain number of years of continuous residence in the UK, meeting various immigration requirements, and paying thousands of pounds in various fees. But not all visa routes...
In April 2024, significant changes were made to the salary thresholds for the skilled worker visa route. The general salary threshold rose from £26,200 to £38,700, along with rises to the various salary concessions including for new entrants and PhD holders. There was also a raise to the ‘going rates’...
The Home Secretary commissioned the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) on 6 August 2024 to begin investigating the use of international recruitment and immigration in particular sectors, starting with the information technology, telecommunications and engineering sectors, which are in the top 10 sectors that have been reliant on international recruitment. The...
In this post I explain the variety of reasons that it is a very bad idea to submit a fee waiver application purely for the purpose of getting section 3C leave, with no eligibility for or intention of making the subsequent immigration application mentioned in the fee waiver application. The...
An applicant has successfully challenged the Home Office’s refusal of his application for further leave to remain in the old Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) route after obvious errors were made both procedurally and in the refusal letter. The case is R (on the application of Ghadam) v Secretary of State for...
In April this year, the government introduced significant increases to the qualifying salary rates for the skilled worker and global business mobility routes. While employers and potential employees grapple with how the new salary thresholds and ‘going rate’ percentiles affect new hires as compared to extensions in the same role,...
The Home Office has confirmed via a notification on the sponsorship management system that some salary going rates (i.e. the salary requirements specific to those occupations eligible for sponsorship under the Skilled Worker route) included in March 2024 statement of changes to the immigration rules HC 590 were incorrectly stated...
Often corporate immigration advice can feel as though it boils down to Skilled Worker applications and little else. In amongst that “little else” is the UK Expansion Worker route, which came in to replace the sole representative route. We already have a briefing on how to apply under this route and...
In the midst of time last year, it was announced that Tech Nation would cease operations on 31 March 2023, which we reported on here. Tech Nation is one of several ‘endorsing bodies’ that issue endorsements to individuals who are ‘exceptionally talented’ or ‘exceptionally promising’. Tech based applicants can apply...
Being somewhat of a dinosaur (55) I can remember when the UK had a work permit system specific to entertainers and sportspeople. A little team of civil servants beavering away in an office near the Houses of Parliament, deciding who gets a work permit and who doesn’t. For two years...
The High Court has again confirmed that mandatory sponsor licence revocation is, indeed, mandatory. One Trees Estates Ltd, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 1644 (Admin) brings consensus to the courts’ approach on the Home Office’s duty to undertake a wider...