Senior or Specialist Worker Visa

When applying for a Global Business Mobility – Senior or Specialist Worker Visa, you must meet some work requirements at your overseas employer.

If your gross annual salary is less than £73,900, you must have worked for the overseas business linked to your UK sponsor for a cumulative period of at least 12 months.

The 12 months of work outside the UK may be accumulated where you have worked continuously for the linked business within the UK or overseas for at least 12 months before the date of your application, with only short breaks taken for statutory leaves.

Where your gross salary is £73,900 per year or more, you must be currently working for a business or organization linked to your UK sponsor, but you do not have to have worked for any specified length of time.

You must meet certain financial requirements when applying for a senior worker visa. These include;

• You must meet the salary requirements, requiring that you are paid at least £42,400 or the going rate for the role you are working in.
• You must prove through bank statements that you have cash funds of at least £1,270 to support yourself in the UK financially. You must have held the money for at least 28 consecutive days. The last day of the 28 days must be no more than 31 days before your specialist worker visa application date. You will be exempted from this financial requirement if;
• Through the sponsorship certificate, your employer shows that they agree to support your first month of stay in the Uk with at least £1,270.
• You have been resident in the UK for at least 12 months on another visa route.

You must complete your specialist worker application within three months of obtaining your certificate of sponsorship and no more than three months before your start date. You can apply for this visa from within or outside the UK.

The application is online through the Home Office website (www.gov.uk). As part f your application, you will be required to prove your identity. Depending on where you’re from and the type of passport you have, you will either;

• have your fingerprints and photograph taken at a visa application center to get a biometric residence permit, or
• use the ‘UK Immigration: ID Check’ app to scan your identity document.

The Home Office will direct you on what to do when you make your application. Afterward, you must pay the application fee and annual immigration health surcharge and submit supporting documentation to the visa application center.

If you currently have to leave to remain based on a different immigration category, you may be able to extend your stay in the UK by Switching to the Senior or Specialist Worker route.

The process is the same as applying from outside the country, but you may not have to meet the financial requirements.

If you were granted permission to remain as a visitor, Short-term student, Parent of a Child Student, Seasonal Worker, or Domestic Worker in a Private Household or outside the Immigration Rules, you would not be able to switch to the specialist worker route.

Additionally, if you plan to switch to this visa from a Student visa, one of the following must apply to you:

• You’ve completed the course you were sponsored to study on your Student visa
• The start date of your job is after the completion date of your course
• You’ve been studying for a PhD for at least 24 months

When applying for a senior or specialist worker visa, you must submit certain documents to support your application. The documents you will submit include;

• A valid passport with at least one blank page or other identity documents that show your identity and nationality.
• Documents showing details of your job title and salary
• Certificate of a sponsorship reference number
• Your job’s occupation code, your employer’s name, and their sponsor license number
• Evidence that you meet the financial requirements to support your stay in the UK; unless your employer has
• Evidence that you work for your employer overseas.
• If you are applying for the Intra-company Graduate Trainee visa, you must provide details of the training program.
• Your tuberculosis test results if you are from a TB endemic country
• You may be asked for a valid ATAS certificate if your job involves researching a sensitive subject at a Ph.D. level or higher.

You must pay the application fees as part of your application for a senior or specialist worker visa. The standard application fees depend on where you are applying from and how long you intend to stay in the UK.

If you apply from outside the UK and intend to stay for more than three years, you will pay £625, but if you intend to stay for more than three years, you will pay £1,235. If you are applying to switch to a senior or specialist worker visa from inside the UK, you will pay £719 if you intend to stay in the UK for less than three years. However, if you intend to stay for more than three years, you will pay £1,423

In addition to the visa application fee, you will also be required to pay the annual immigration health surcharge, usually £624 per year.

Once you have applied online, paid the required fees, and submitted your supporting documentation, the Home Office will start processing your application. Typically, you will get a decision within three weeks. However, factors like failing to submit complete supporting documents, the presence of a previous criminal conviction, etc., may cause your processing time to be longer.

However, some visa application centers allow senior or specialist worker visa applicants to pay for faster processing.

You will be granted entry clearance into the UK if your visa application is approved. You will be able to stay in the UK for five years or the period stipulated on your Certificate of Sponsorship plus 14 days, whichever is shorter.

You can apply to extend your Senior or Specialist Worker Visa for a maximum period of 5 years in any six years if you are paid less than £73,900 per year, or nine years in any ten years if you are paid £73,900 or more per year.

Because the Global business mobility visa does not allow indefinite leave to remain, you may be able to switch to a different visa category that grants you indefinite leave to remain.

Such immigration routes include; the Skilled Worker route or the Start-up route when combined with the Innovator route.

You will need to satisfy the requirements of the immigration route that you wish to extend into.

Total Law is authorized and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Our team of immigration lawyers is experienced in all areas of British immigration. With countless successful applications aided through the years, we can help you through the entire process to ensure that you put forward the most robust possible application to guarantee success.
Our immigration lawyers will help you determine that you meet the eligibility criteria for a senior or specialist worker visa and will advise you detailedly on which supporting documentation you should have. In addition, years of experience with this process have made us aware of the common mistakes that applicant make that causes application refusal. Therefore, we will help you avoid these errors to ensure that your application is consistent and readily accepted.

If you’ve had a previous refusal, Total Law can help you file an appeal or walk you through the re-application process to ensure you get accepted.
So contact us today at +1 844 290 6312 to start your journey towards a successful UK visa application.