Global Business Mobility – Senior or Specialist Worker

Global Business Mobility – Senior or Specialist Worker is targeted overseas managers and specialist employees who are undertaking temporary work assignments in the UK and are being assigned to a UK business linked to their employer overseas. This assignment is often called an intra-company transfer or ICT. 

A partner and dependent children can apply to come to the UK on Global Business Mobility – Senior or Specialist Worker too. However, this route does not lead to settlement. People who want to stay beyond the maximum period permitted will have to switch to another immigration route which leads to settlement.

Eligibility

You must satisfy the following requirements when you apply the Global Business Mobility – Senior or Specialist Worker visa:

• You are aged 18 or above on the date of application;
• You have a valid certificate of sponsorship you are planning to do;
• Your sponsor must be listed as A-rated on the Home Office’s register of licensed sponsors, unless you were last granted permission as a Senior or Specialist Worker and are applying to continue working for the same sponsor as in your last permission;
• You also meet the requirements in the next few sections.

You may work for the ‘Sponsor group’, which means the sponsor and any business or organisation that is linked to the sponsor by common ownership or control, or by a joint venture on which the applicant is sponsored to work.

Work requirement

The job you are planning to do is genuine and is not created mainly for application of entry clearance or permission to stay. You must be currently working for the overseas business for at least 12 months, unless you are applying as a high earner. A high earner has a gross annual salary is £73,900 or more, based on working a maximum of 48 hours per week.

The 12 months’ work outside the UK can have been accumulated over any period that you were continuously working for the sponsor group, either in or out of the UK, for at least 12 months before the date of application. The breaks caused by the following reasons will be counted in the continuous period:

• statutory maternity, paternity, parental, or shared parental leave;
• statutory adoption leave;
• sick leave;
• assisting with a national or international humanitarian or environmental crisis, with the agreement of the sponsor group; or
• taking part in legally organised industrial action.

Job Skill Level Requirement

You must be sponsored for a job that you are eligible or above a minimum skill level. Your job must be on the occupation code listed in Appendix Skilled Occupations, unless you have, or last had, permission as a Senior or Specialist for a job exempted and you are sponsored to continue working in the same job for the same employer in the same occupation code.

The Appendix Skilled Occupations shows a list of jobs which are eligible for the Global Business Mobility routes with occupation codes, job type and related job titles. The sponsor must have chosen an appropriate code and you must have the appropriate skills, qualifications and experience needed to do the job described.

Salary Requirement

Your employer must pay you a salary which is not less than the general salary requirement or the going rate for the chosen occupation code listed in Appendix Skilled Occupations. The general salary requirement is £42,000 per year and the going rate requirement is 100% of the pro-rated going rate in most of the cases. Therefore, your employer must pay you at £42,000 per year and 100% of the pro-rated going rate for the occupation, whichever is higher. If you work more than 48 hours a week, only the first 48 hours a week will be considered towards the general salary requirement.

You do not need to meet the general salary requirement if you are applying for permission to stay and previously granted permission as a Tier 2 (Intra-Company Transfer) Migrant before 6 April 2011, or as a Work Permit Holder and since then has continuously had permission as a Senior or Specialist Worker.

Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS)

The valid CoS must be issued by the sponsor and show the following details:

• applicant’s name, details of the job to be sponsored, salary and PAYE details if HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) income tax and national insurance for the sponsored job to be paid via PAYE;
• job’s start date which is no more than 3 months after the date of application;
• confirmation that the applicant is expected to work for the Sponsor for at least 6 months;
• the CoS has not been used in previous application which was either granted or refused (but can has been used in a previous application which was rejected as invalid, made void or withdrawn);
• the CoS has not been withdrawn by the sponsor or cancelled by the Home Office;
• confirmation that the applicant has worked outside the UK for the sponsor group for at least 12 months, unless the applicant is applying as a high earner; and
• confirmation of whether the Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) requirement applies.

Maintenance

You must show that you have enough money to support yourself (and any dependants). They must have the adequate amount (see below) of personal savings in cash held for at least consecutive 28 days before the date of application;

• £1,270 for the main applicant
• £285 for a dependent partner
• £315 for a first child
• £200 for each subsequent child

If you have been in the UK with permission for 12 months or longer on the date of application, you will meet the financial requirement and do not need to show funds.

Length and Maximum length of visa

If your application is successful, you will be granted entry clearance or permission to stay for either the time given on your Certificate of Sponsorship plus 14 days, a period of 5 years, or the length of time that will be taken to the maximum period shown below, whichever is shorter:

• 9 years in any 10-year period if you are applying as a high earner; or
• 5 years in any 6-year period if you are not applying as a high earner.

In the calculation of cumulative periods of permission, all periods of permission granted on Global Business Mobility routes and those on the Intra-Company routes will be included.

Your partner will be granted permission which ends on the same date as yours; while your dependent children will be granted permission which ends on the same date as whichever of their parents’ permission ends first.

Conditions of the visa

If you are granted as a Senior or Specialist Worker Migrant, you are permitted to work for the job which is being sponsored generally, but you are also allowed to study and do voluntary work. You are not allowed to access public funds.

Switching into the Global Business Mobility – Senior and Specialist Worker

Applicants who have other permissions to stay in the UK can switch to Global Business Mobility – Senior and Specialist – Senior and Specialist Worker visa except where you were last granted permission as a Visitor, a Short-term Student, a Parent of a Child Student, a Seasonal Worker, a Domestic Worker in a Private Household or outside the Immigration Rules.