UK Tier 2 Visa

Disclaimer: Please note I am not qualified in the emigration field, the below observations are what I discovered when researching the Tier 2 visa in my personal capacity.  When applying for a Tier 2 visa please get the help of a person duly qualified to assist you.  

Photo by Nicole Harrington on Unsplash

As mentioned in my previous post, I spent many months researching the Tier 2 visa, in the hopes that our younger daughter Paula (a qualified Speech Language Pathologist, with a 4 year honours degree) could enter the UK via this route.  What I discovered is that the Tier 2 visa is not an easy visa to lay your hands on.

To get a Tier 2 visa you would ideally have an occupation that is on the Skills shortage list which you can find here.

If your career is not on that list, your only other chance would be to have a qualification RQF 6 or above that appears on the Skilled Work list - see Table 2 on this website: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-j-codes-of-practice-for-skilled-work 

  

If you qualify, then the next step would be to make a list of employers in your line of work, who are registered as sponsors (see this list https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/register-of-licensed-sponsors-workers) and begin applying for work with those employers.  Should you be successful in your job search, the employer would then need to issue you with a certificate of sponsorship.

Currently, there are only 20 700 restricted certificate of sponsorship available every year, these are divided across the months of the year and only a fixed number of certificates of sponsorship are issued each month.  Basically, they are issued on a points system, with the applicant with the most points getting issued the first certificate and so on.  To put it simply, the certificates are issued based on salary, so the higher the salary the greater the chance of getting a certificate of sponsorship.  

If you are not on the skills shortage list, any sponsor who is willing to employ you first has to conduct a Resident Labour Market test, to prove that they cannot find a local person to do that job.  They also have to pay you the minimum wage (currently £30 000) 

There are some exceptions to all of the above - the rules are somewhat different for those on the Skill Shortage List, for those switching from a Tier 4 visa to a Tier 2 and for doctors and nurses, amongst others.

See the detailed requirements here: https://www.gov.uk/tier-2-general/eligibility  Only once all these requirements are met can you apply for a visa.