UK

United Kingdom

Employers in the UK looking to hire workers from outside the country need to navigate the work permit process carefully. Job Bridge Global use a regulated Immigration Lawyer to ensure the process is compliant. Here’s a full breakdown:

  1. Sponsor Licence

To employ someone from outside the UK, employers need a sponsor licence. This includes citizens of the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland who arrived after December 31, 2020. Our OISC regulated Lawyer will assist companies in applying for their licence and educating them in how to maintain it.

  1. Eligibility

We will check their business eligibility and ensure the job is suitable for sponsorship. This involves meeting specific criteria set by UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) for Immigration Salary List roles (previously shortage occupation) and Eligible Skilled roles.

  1. Applying for DCOS

Our Immigration Lawyer can be assigned a Level 1 user of your Sponsor Management System, thus taking care of all DCOS applications on your behalf.

Once you have a licence, you can issue certificates of sponsorship to prospective employees. This certificate is a key part of their visa application, outlining the terms of employment such as duration and pay. These must also meet the minimum salary threshold requirements for the job role.

  1. Application Process
  • Apply Online: Assign the worker to the DCOS and pay COS fee and Immigration Skills charge.
  • Apply for Work Permit: Using one of our templates for data capture, our Immigration Lawyer will apply for the work permit and provide swift payments for Visa application and Health Surcharge.
  • Note: we provide a payment facility, whereby we process the payments on employers behalf. It can become cumbersome for large corporations to make bulk payments of the same value which usually gets flagged by banks and slows down the process. We can do this seamlessly as expense payments.
  1. Responsibilities

As a sponsor, you have ongoing responsibilities, including monitoring your employees and reporting any changes to UKVI. Our Immigration Lawyer can provide advice on this.

  1. Visa Types

Common work visas include:

  • Skilled Worker Visa: For individuals with a job offer in a skilled occupation.
  • Health and Care Worker Visa: For medical professionals.

Please arrange a call with us so we can explain these steps and requirements in more detail. They are crucial for successfully hiring international talent in the UK.

January 2025 Updates: The UK has switched to an eVisa system. To ensure your candidates can work straight away, give us a call where we can explain the bottlenecks such as:

  • UKVI accounts before landing and avoiding mistakes
  • eVisa propagating into UKVI accounts
  • Bank Account registrations and contingency across differing ID verifications
  • Right to Work checks using Sharecodes.
  • National Insurance Numbers not populating into eVisa and how to apply.