On 1 December 2020, the UK introduced a new points-based immigration system, triggered by the end of free movement of people across the EU. The first major change was to replace the Tier 2 General route with a revamped Skilled Worker route, which the Home Office claimed streamlined the sponsorship system for skilled workers, lowering the eligibility criteria and making it more accessible to a wider pool of candidates.
Since then, new routes have slowly been added to the immigration system giving a wider variety of options to non-UK and Irish nationals who want to come to the UK for work. There is still no standalone ‘work visa’ (nor are there any plans to introduce one) and in most cases, candidates will need a sponsor of some sort. However, the re-introduction of a post graduate route and the introduction of new routes (such as a visa for those with ‘high potential’) has meant that businesses don’t always need to consider becoming a sponsor in order to recruit talent from outside the UK and Ireland.
In this webinar, we will give an overview of these new routes, explaining how they can be used by businesses in the UK and abroad to fill vacancies and skills gaps in the UK. We will also take a broad look at the challenges faced by the immigration system and what the Home Office plans are for the future in an attempt to further streamline and simplify what is a complex and thorny immigration system.
Who should attend?
- HR Directors / HR personnel
- Those responsible for recruitment within a business
- Representatives from businesses that are considering expanding into the UK
What will be included in the session
In the session we will explore the pros and cons of the new immigration routes including:
- The Global Talent route (available since January 2020)
- The Graduate route (available since July 2021)
- The suite of Global Mobility routes (available since April 2022), specifically
- Senior or specialist worker
- Graduate trainee
- UK expansion worker
- Service supplier
- Secondment worker
- The High Potential Individual route (available since May 2022)
- The new Scale Up route (available from August 2022)
- The remaining options for innovators and those wishing to start up a business in the UK
We will aim to bring these routes to life with case studies and examples of how they work in practice.
We will also give an overview of other key changes and impacts to the immigration system including
- Changes to the Skilled Worker route since it was introduced including making it easier to recruit care workers into the UK
- The impact the war in the Ukraine has had on visa and sponsor licence processing times
- A brief overview of the recent changes to right to work checking processes
- The Home Office’s plans to move to a more digitised immigration system and what this means for employers