The Home Office published a new change in immigration law that will take effect on the April 6, 2021. Most of the changes are related to skilled worker visas and graduate visas that can be applied after obtaining a bachelor's degree or higher.
The new graduate visa eligibility
This visa route benefits the student visa holder who have completed a bachelor's degree or higher in the UK. They will get job opportunities with granting graduate visas. Graduates' visas, like other work visas, are operated on the point-based system and applicants must score notional 70 points. These Graduates route will go live for the students completing course in 2021 and will be applied from July 1, 2021.
The eligibility criteria are as follows:
- Getting a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree or certain professional qualifications like the LPC for lawyers or PGCE for teachers.
- Being in the UK for a minimum length of stay depending on the duration of the course and subject to exceptions for distance learning between January 2020 and September 2021 (COVID-19).
Ph.D. and other doctoral graduates are permitted to stay for up to three years, and all other graduates can stay for up to two years. Apart from being a professional sportsman, all kinds of work are permitted. This means that Graduate visa holders will potentially become an important pool of labour for employers unable to sponsor Skilled Workers. The employers hiring them will not need a sponsor license.
Partners and children of the visa holder can also be qualified to apply as dependant family members as they have applied for student dependants.
Calculating the minimum hourly salary for Skilled Workers
Under the current immigration rules, minimum salary threshold can be satisfied as annual salary. However, from the new changes, the minimum salary threshold need to be worked out by hourly rates. Regardless of occupation, minimum pay can now be no less than £10.10 an hour, even if the annual salary is above £25,600 a year (lower annual thresholds for new entrants, shortage jobs and people with PhDs). The explanatory memo says that the “purpose of this change is to safeguard against sponsors requiring their employees to work longer hours to compensate for lower pay rates in meeting the minimum salary floor”.
Sponsor Company of skilled workers may be allowed or have to qualify the current workers for one of the lower level of salary thresholds and may reduce their salary to that lower threshold. In these scenario, the visa will have to be submitted again as a fresh application to the Home Office.
Expansion of the Shortage Occupation List
Within this change of immigration rules, group of occupation added to the shortage Occupation list are as follows.
- 1181 Health services and public health managers and directors – all jobs.
- 1242 Residential, day and domiciliary care managers and proprietors – all jobs
- 3111 Laboratory technicians – all jobs
- 6146 Senior care workers – all jobs
- 2213 Pharmacists – all jobs
- 2219 Health professionals not elsewhere classified – all jobs
- 2221 Physiotherapists – all jobs
- 6141 Nursing auxiliaries and assistants – all jobs
Chefs are being removed from the list, since they can now be sponsored as Skilled Workers.
Additional Changes in Global Talent Visa
To obtain a Global Talent visa, you generally need to obtain approval from an organization that will prove your talent. Starting from May 5, 2021, if you are a talented person who has received a prestigious award worldwide, you can apply for a global talent visa without the approval of the institution. These include the Nobel Prize, the Oscars, the Golden Globe Award, the Tony Award, and the Hugo Boss Award.
Enhancement of the ATAS rules
The Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) is required for overseas students undertaking certain courses to get an approval, in case they learn anything of military value and to avoid potential exposure to a hostile foreign power. This scheme is now being extended to some sponsored workers whose job involves academic research in those areas. Workers who apply for skilled workers visa must also receive ATAS certificate from May 21, 2021 if the role is set out in a related field.
The occupation group that requires ATAS certificates applies to science, social sciences, humanities as well as biotechnology, chemistry, biology, physics, and to some technical support workers in electrical engineering, electronics, architecture, aircraft maintenance technology, and building and civil engineering.
Certificates of sponsorship for the Skilled Worker, Intra-company, International Agreement, and Government Authorised Exchange visas will in future have to confirm whether the ATAS rules apply. If so, the application must be accompanied by an ATAS certificate to be granted approval for your visa application.
In addition to the visas listed above, some details such as creative worker visitor visas, parent of independent school student visas, BNO visas, and EU settlement scheme have been changed, but they have not changed much, so they have been excluded from this posting.