A new report comes with a stark warning: “As the number of sponsored migrant workers rises every quarter, the issue of migrant labour exploitation is only likely to increase”. Work Rights Centre, a charity that works to support migrants and disadv ...

The Migration Advisory Committee has recommended that the shortage occupation list is abolished and that people in the asylum system with permission to work are allowed to work in any role. These are some of the recommendations in the full review of t ...

The UK Expansion Worker visa is part of the Global Business Mobility route. It enables overseas businesses seeking to expand into the UK to temporarily assign senior managers and specialist employees, including business owners, to the UK to establish ...

The immigration skills charge is an additional fee payable by a sponsoring employer when a certificate of sponsorship is issued prior to a worker beginning their employment. The sponsor is required to pay the immigration skills charge and cannot pass ...

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 suppor ...

The Global Business Mobility: Secondment Worker visa route is for overseas workers who are undertaking temporary assignments in the UK. The worker must be seconded to the UK as part of a high value contract or investment by their employer overseas. Th ...

Last week the Supreme Court found that a financing scheme to help individuals qualify for an Investor visa did not comply with the requirements of the immigration rules. The case is R (on the application of Wang) v Secretary of State for the Home Depa ...

The Seasonal Worker route is one of those visas in the Temporary Worker family, allowing people to come to the UK for short stints without the right to stay long term. Seasonal Worker visas made up around half of all temporary worker gr ...

There is only a day left to respond to the Migration Advisory Committee’s (MAC’s) current call for evidence on what roles should appear on the Shortage Occupation List. Employers have until 26th May 2023 to put forward their cases for why certain ...

The Global Business Mobility: Service Supplier route is for overseas workers who are undertaking temporary assignments in the UK. The applicant must be either a contractual service supplier employed by an overseas service provider or a self-employed i ...

In a written statement to parliament today, Suella Braverman announced that the government intends to tighten the rules for international students in an attempt to bring down net migration figures, which are due to be published this Thursday, 25 May. ...

Yesterday the Prime Minister announced a quota of 45,000 seasonal worker visas for 2024, “to give certainty to the horticulture sector next year, enabling them to plan ahead for the picking season”. It is billed as part of a larger package of supp ...

A Youth Mobility visa enables people aged 18-30 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 ...

Last month, two new visa concessions were added to the Hong Kong British Nationals (overseas) (BN(O)) route. You can read about them in more detail in the Home Office guidance. Leave outside the rules where financial or residency requirements cannot ...

The Innovator Founder visa route was launched on 13 April 2023, designed for entrepreneurs looking to establish an innovative, viable, and scalable business in the UK. In line with the government’s wider ‘UK Innovation Strategy‘, thi ...

The Global Business Mobility Senior or Specialist Worker visa was previously known as the Intra-Company Transfer visa. In 2022, the route was rebranded and grouped together with four other temporary work visas now known as the Global Business Mobility ...

The Government Authorised Exchange (GAE) 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 te ...

Yesterday’s Spring Budget 2023 announced upcoming changes to the business visitor visa requirements and the addition of construction workers to the Shortage Occupation List. Additional language support for Ukraine Visa Scheme holders was also announ ...

When employers apply for and are granted a licence to sponsor workers, they make a pledge to accept all the duties of sponsorship, and the Home Office can take compliance action when they consider that a sponsor has failed to uphold their duties or ot ...

The UK continues to play host to industrial action with the latest strike action announced this week being opted for by Junior Doctors and currently set for March 2023. For many, negotiated settlements continue to be some way off and further strikes a ...

It is common for immigration lawyers to advise clients in the UK that travelling outside the Common Travel Area (CTA) when an immigration application is pending will result in the application being treated as withdrawn (cue fiddly explanations to clie ...

This week Tech Nation announced that it will cease operation on 31 March 2023 after the government terminated its grant funding. Tech Nation has spent the last decade embedding and scaling up the tech ecosystem, simultaneously bringing thousands of pe ...

Almost five years after Amber Rudd committed to a review of individuals who had entered the UK under the Tier 1 (Investor) route, today, Suella Braverman provided the government’s final response. The review looked at individuals who had entered the ...

Economic migration is a two-way street. The UK might be ready and willing to receive the world’s elite economic migrants, but they may not be so ready and willing for much longer. A recent report from the Institute for Management Development ran ...

The Home Office has made several changes that businesses sponsoring overseas workers should be aware of.  Amendments have been made to the Workers and Temporary Workers: guidance for sponsors part 2: sponsor a worker – general information (“g ...

When the pandemic first hit in March 2020 the Home Office was quick off the mark in allowing employers to conduct right to work checks remotely. Rather than having to meet job applicants and employees needing to renew their status in person, they were ...

The Sunday Times reports that the Truss government intends to follow through on Truss’s pledge during the leadership race to raise the cap on seasonal agricultural workers. “Reform” of the visa system is also planned to “attrac ...

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 ...

Are you applying to stay in the Isle of Man, Jersey or Guernsey? This is one of the final questions asked at the submission stage for all UK residence visa applications. Immigration professionals will invariably select “no” and progress with submi ...

The Scale-up visa is a new immigration route for workers from abroad that opened on 22 August 2022. The Home Office bills this as a visa route for high-growth businesses to attract top talent to the UK. Supposedly, the route offers sponsors the flexib ...

The High Potential Individual visa is a new offering from the Home Office 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 t ...

What’s better than a plan for immigration? A new plan for immigration. July saw the publication of the Government’s New Plan for Immigration: Legal Migration and Border Control policy paper. Not much of the content can really be described ...

Sponsoring a foreign worker isn’t cheap. Application fees and visa taxes typically run to thousands of pounds. Since the UK left the European Union, the costs of sponsorship have also applied to employers who want to hire EU workers under the Po ...