Heading to the UK ? The advice is look carefully at all your visa options.
10 March 2008
Over the next two years the British government is overhauling the UK’s immigration system. They are in the process of introducing an Australian style points based model and people applying to enter the UK will be categorized into five tiers.
As of March 2008, Tier 1 has become operational which affects the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme. In effect, applicants still wanting to come to the UK on the HSMP will see few changes in the necessary criteria and the pass mark of 75 points still remains.
The main issue will be for candidates planning to come to the UK on a Working Holiday Maker visa and then expecting to switch to the HSMP after they have arrived. From now on this will no longer be possible.
Candidates will have to return to their country of origin to gain their HSMP visa stamp and FastrackUK’s visa experts warn that this could take up to six weeks.
For those who plan to use the WHM as it was originally intended, a two year break to travel around the UK and Europe doing a bit of casual work along the way, it is still the perfect visa.
However if a candidate is interested in developing their UK career and hoping to extend their UK stay, Immigration specialist Michael Foster, advises them to check if they qualify for any of the other visas.
Many people just opt for the WHM visa because it is quick and easy or because it is what their friends did. However from now on it is probably worth taking a little more time and getting expert advice, to find out if you qualify for any of the other visas, such as ancestry or HSMP. Although they are more time consuming and costly at the outset you could save yourself money and a lot of inconvenience in the long run.
Of course for those FastrackUK candidates who don’t have British heritage or the necessary points to qualify for HSMP at this point, the WHM visa will still be the best option.
According to Michael Foster the end of the ‘in country’ switch makes life a little more difficult for candidates but with forward planning any impact can be minimized.
If a working holiday maker decides they want to apply for the HSMP, they now know that it will involve a trip home. But they have lots of time to plan and can factor their return trip into their long term plans, hopefully with the minimum disruption and inconvenience.
Summary of main changes:
Tier 1 now operational affecting HSMP
Few changes to criteria (English Language proof more stringent)
WHM’s no longer able to make in country switch to HSMP
The UK government is still to announce details about the other Tiers, due to be rolled out over the next two years. FastrackUK will keep you updated via our newsletters and our website as soon as we are informed of the new regulations. Please feel free to contact us with any of your concerns and our visa specialists will help in any way they can.
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