What Is a UK Scale-Up Worker Visa?
A UK Scale-up Worker visa is a relatively new visa route. “Scale-up” refers to a fast-growing British company that has to look outside the domestic labour market to keep growing.
A UK Scale-up visa is designed to facilitate the employment of foreign specialists. It is not only beneficial to UK employers but to foreign employees too.
A UK Scale-up Worker visa allows you to relocate to the UK, bring your family with you, work, and study. Moreover, you must work for your sponsor for only six months, after which you can choose to leave them and work for someone else. A UK Scale-up visa leads to settlement, or UK Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), and British citizenship. Imperial & Legal’s immigration advisors will be happy to help you reach your goals.
Advantages of UK Scale-Up Worker Visa
- As a foreign specialist employed by a scale-up business, you can stay in the UK for two years.
- You can leave your sponsor after six months and find another employer without applying for another UK visa.
- You can study, volunteer, and have a second job, including self-employment.
- You can extend your visa for three years even if you are not sponsored, provided you met the earnings requirements during at least half of your stay on your current Scale-up visa.
- After living in the UK for five years on a UK Scale-up Worker visa, you can apply for ILR. If you do not want to do this for some reason, you can simply keep extending your UK Scale-up visa every three years.
- A UK Scale-Up Worker visa allows you to bring your spouse, partner, and children. Your dependants, just like you, can be eligible for settlement and UK citizenship.
- You will live in a safe country with a stable economy and a lot of unique development opportunities. Besides, working in the UK is a valuable experience, which is always a bonus to your CV.
Like other UK visas, a UK Scale-up visa has specific requirements for both foreign workers and their British employers.
Requirements of UK Scale-up Worker visa
To get a UK Scale-up Worker visa, you must:
- Apply for a job that’s on the list of eligible occupations and get a job offer for at least 6 months.
- Get a certificate of sponsorship from your British employer with the four-digit occupation code for the role you have been offered in the UK.
- Be paid at least a minimum salary in your job.
- Speak English to at least the B1 level on the CERF scale.
Apart from the special requirements listed above, there are some general ones too. The Rules require that the applicant must:
- Be of age
- Have a clean immigration record
- Have no debt to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).
You must also include your negative tuberculosis test results if you have lived in a listed country for the last few months.
English language requirement for UK Scale-up Worker visa
To qualify for a UK Scale-up Worker visa, you must have at least a B1 level of English under the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
It means that you must speak and understand English well enough to talk about your professional and personal life. You do not have to speak like a native person, but you must demonstrate that no misunderstanding could interfere with your professional activities in the UK.
You can prove your knowledge of English by passing a special test or providing a degree-level academic qualification that was taught in English by a university or a college approved by the UK government.
Nationals of 17 former British colonies do not have to prove their knowledge of English. They include Caribbean jurisdictions that offer citizenship by investment programs.
What Businesses are Considered Scale-up in the UK?
To qualify as a scale-up business, a UK-based company must meet several criteria determined by the Home Office. If a UK employer wants to hire foreign specialists, they must obtain a sponsorship licence.
A sponsorship licence gives a UK company the right to employ foreigners and issue certificates of sponsorship. Besides, they will be responsible for the invited specialists and must monitor their attendance and comply with the salary requirements. All licensed sponsors are listed in the Register of licensed sponsors published on the official government website.
A business is considered scale-up and allowed to employ specialists from outside the UK if it complies with two requirements:
- In the three years immediately before it is included in the Register of licensed sponsors, the business must grow by 20% or more each year in either headcount or turnover.
- The business must have at least 10 employees at the very beginning of these three years.
How to find out If a job is eligible?
To obtain a UK visa, a foreign employee needs a certificate of sponsorship; it is an electronic record from an online register. Assigning a certificate of sponsorship to a foreign worker means that:
- A scale-up business used its sponsorship licence to make a record in the system.
- The applicant has the certificate number to access the details of the offered job, including the four-digit occupation code.
British sponsors usually know the Rules and would only employ foreign specialists when it is a job listed among eligible occupations.
At the same time, a sponsored applicant applying for a UK Scale-up Worker visa must also do their research and check what job they will do in the UK, what is their occupation code and whether their job is among eligible occupations. Therefore, before you include a certificate of sponsorship in your application, make sure that your job qualifies.
You can either find the best job for you to relocate to the UK on a UK Scale-up visa route on your own or get in touch with our experienced immigration advisors.
UK Scale-up Worker visa salary requirements
There are several ways to calculate a salary of a foreign worker employed by a scale-up UK company:
Salary calculation | Amount | |
| 1 | The minimum annual rate for a foreign employee | £36,300 per year |
| 2 | The hourly rate | £18.62 per hour |
| 3 | The ‘going rate’ for eligible occupations | According to the table of eligible occupations |
A foreign worker will be paid whichever is the highest out of the options above.
How much does it cost to apply for a UK Scale-up Worker Visa?
There are two amounts to keep in mind when applying for a UK Scale-up visa:
- Application costs
- The money to support yourself in the UK before you get your first salary.
The application fee is £880. If you want to bring your family with you, you will have to pay extra for each dependant. If the Home Office does not grant you a visa, you will not get this fee back. Another cost is a healthcare surcharge; it is £1,035 per adult (£776 for a child under 18) for each year of your stay, and the total amount must be paid at the time of application.
If you apply for a UK Scale-up Worker visa from outside the UK, you will also be charged for having your photograph and fingerprints taken at a UK visa application centre.
You will also need to prove that you have enough savings to support yourself when you arrive in the UK. You must have the equivalent of £1,270 at the current exchange rate on your bank account. The money must be deposited at least 28 days before applying for a UK Scale-up Worker visa. If you want to bring your family with you, you must have additional funds to support them. For further information, please contact our immigration advisors.
UK Scale-up Worker visa extension
You can apply to extend your UK Scale-up visa after two years if both of the following are true:
- You have worked in your sponsored job for at least six months.
- You have earned at least £36,300 per year during 12 out of the 24 months of your stay.
You cannot stay in the UK on the same visa if you do not work for your sponsor for a minimum of six months, so the key extension criterium is your earnings. You must earn over £36,300 per year for at least half of your stay in the UK on a UK Scale-up Worker visa.
Since you must be in the UK to apply to extend your UK Scale-up visa, you will get a decision within 8 weeks. Therefore, allow two to three months for the whole visa extension process or be ready to pay for a fast-track option.
Obtaining UK Scale-up Worker visa with Imperial & Legal
You can try to get a UK visa yourself, but if don’t have experience in immigration matters, you might get a visa refusal. This can be due to errors in your application form, incorrect paperwork, missing information, or unreliable sponsors.
With Imperial & Legal’s guidance, you will save time and money. Our immigration advisors are regulated and will help you resolve all your issues. That is especially important for first-time applicants whose work and life in the UK are at stake. The standard process of applying for a UK Scale-up Worker visa includes four steps.
