New Visa routes has been introduced by the UK Home Office
16 March 2022.
The Home Office has introduced new visa routes which will bring more highly skilled migrants to the UK. The new visa types are the followings:
Scale up visa route;
High Potential Individual (HPI) route; and
Global Business Mobility visa.
The Scale-up visa route
The Scale-up visa will allow those with a job offer at the required skills level from a recognised UK scale-up to qualify for a fast track visa.
It is mandatory to have a job offer from an authorised UK scale-up company. UK companies that have an annualised growth of at least 20% for the previous 3 year period in terms of turnover or staffing and have had minimum of 10 employees at the start of this 3 year period can register with the Home Office as a scale-up company.
The Job offer must bee skilled to graduate level and annual salary must be at least £33000 per year or the going rate for the particular vacancy, whichever is higher.
If successful, the Scale-up visa will be issued for 2 years and with further extension of 3 years. At the end of 5 years of residency it will be possible to apply for indefinite leave to remain.
The main advantage of the scale up visa route is that it is only mandatory for a migrant worker to work for a scale up company for the first 6 months and after that their immigration status will no longer be tied to that employer and they can join another company with at least £33,000 salary per annum.
High Potential Individual (HPI) route;
The High Potential Individual visa will be issued for those people that they have successfully completed their Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD degree courses in one of the top 50 Global Universities (excluding UK Universities as there is already a graduate visa route for those graduates) during the last 5 years from the date of application.
The list of top 50 universities will be published by the Home Office but they will be taken from:
1. Times Higher Education World University Rankings;
2. Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings;
3. The Academic Ranking of World Universities.
Permission will be granted for a period of 2 years for Bachelor’s and Master’s level degree holders and for 3 years for PhD graduates.
Global Business Mobility route
This visa route replaces current Skilled worker (Intra Company Transfer route) and Representatives of an Overseas Business visa routes.
The Global Business Mobility route is designed for overseas businesses seeking to establish presence in or transfer staff to, the UK for specific business purposes. In total there will be 5 various routes within the Global Business Mobility route. They are:
The Senior or Specialist Worker is for senior managers who are being assigned to work in the UK and it replaces current Intra Company Transfer route.
The Graduate Trainee route is for workers that are on a graduate training course leading to a senior management position and it replaces current the Intra Company Graduate Trainee route.
The UK Expansion Worker replaces current the Sole Representative of an Overseas Business route.
The Service Supplier is designed for contractual service suppliers employed by an overseas business. This visa route replaces current the contractual service supplier in the Temporary Work – International Agreement route.
The Secondment Worker is a new route for workers being seconded to the UK by their companies from abroad.