Hi,

I'm currently working in London. Not too sure about meetups though. Getting sponsorship visa is quite difficult, I would expect more so for fresh graduate since the post-study work visa route has ended.

Btw, the immigration rules tightened for non-EU citizens because UK have no power to control EU migration to the UK, leading to the whole Brexit scenario. I'd rather blame TonyBlair for this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/19...-would-come-uk/

Anyway, that's just my personal opinion. Feel free to ask questions here and I will try to answer it based on my experience

I'm doing software development. It might be more difficult, but not impossible to get a visa to stay. When I applied for my visa, a labour market test is required and only if no UK citizen/EU citizen/UK resident is unable to fulfil the job, then only the company can hire me.

Even when the company choose to hire me, there is a monthly limit to Tier 2 General visa. The higher the salary is, the better the chances are.

But if you know a contact in a company that is able and willing to sponsor you, then you are in luck! Not easy, but can be done.

I think the key point here is experience. For a company to justify a fresh graduate has the skills and knowledge in banking that other more experienced residents/EU citizens do not have will be somewhat difficult.

Congrats on your new job. If it's in London, a decent accomodation can easily take up 1.5k-2k alone though but you will still get to live very comfortably with that salary. Only downside of getting a high salary is the 40% tax but that is a good problem

I'm in the IT sector too. Got your visa all sorted out already?

You're also working in UK? Salary is very good and can live very comfortably but I won't say can live like a king unless can afford to rent a 3-bed flat like this

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/to-rent/details/45...2c77ffb23a0b99e

liew_jls mentioned most of the points already, but i'll list it down again in a different way as well. here are the reasons why it's difficult

1. Not every company can sponsor applicants. If the company is not in this list, they cannot sponsor you even if they wanted to: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/syste...of_Sponsors.pdf

2. Even if they can sponsor applicants, they have limited restricted sponsorship cerificates. They might have used up their quota or they want to save their quota for a more experienced candidate. They might not be willing to use a restricted sponsorship certificate for a fresh graduate

3. If you managed to get past the first 2 hurdles, you might get called for an interview. You then have to compete with so many other people in London looking for jobs. Without any impressive experience, skills and qualifications (or connections) it might be difficult to impress the interviewer

4. Assuming the interview was a success and the company wants to hire you, they can't do it immediately as they will have to conduct a resident labour market test and advertise in 2 different websites for at least a month. The company's decision to hire you might also be questioned and it would be difficult to explain why they can't hire a fresh graduate that is a UK/EU citizen or permanent resident unless you have a unique skillset/experience/qualifications

5. The company might not be able to get a valid certificate of sponsorship as there is a limit of 2000 certificates issued every month for the whole of UK. Some months the quota might be fully used. The higher the salary, the better the chances are so if the salary is low it is unlikely to get a valid certificate of sponsorship. you can see the details here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/...-of-sponsorship

6. Once you reached this stage, you can finally apply for your visa, and it can cost up to over £1000 for a long term visa

As you can see, it is very challenging and you probably need to have something special to stand a better chance. Normally that would be qualification, skills, experience or connections. If you are a fresh graduate, best is try to network with your friends from university who just entered the work force and maybe they can help to open some doors for you. Best of luck and remember that although it might be difficult, it is not impossible.

I'm a little bit confused. You mentioned that you are now working in the banking industry. Did you mean in Malaysia or London? London is extremely competitive. For every job opening, there are many qualified applicants.

Personally, I don't think masters will help. Labour time was easier as there is Tier 1 General and Tier 1 Post Study Work visa which is now unavailable. Also over the years UK attracted so many migrants from both EU and outside of EU that talent is now so readily available locally that most employers will hesitate to sponsor someone, unless that person has something special.

I was a bit lucky because one of my ex-manager was a British and invited me to work for him. I am not a fresh graduate but have been working in the industry for almost 10 years before moving to the UK, so it was not too difficult to justify that they need an expertise that cannot be sourced locally to pass the labour market test. You can see in both my case and liew_jls there is an element of "connection" and an element of "luck".

Btw @liew_jls congrats on your ILR! I still need to suffer for 2 more years . I also can't easily move jobs because I need sponsorship if I switch jobs. So I'm stuck, but at least I am grateful I still have a job.

Welcome! where are you based at? London?

I'm based in North West London. Been around for just 3 years in the UK

I'm based at Northwood, but might pay a visit there


Mine is in October 2019, but I'm starting to study for the Life in the UK Test. A lot of ground to cover

yes. got transferred by my company over here. how about you? managed to get a job after graduating here? maybe you can share some tips with the TS

I'm in the telcommunications field. Haha, very very far away from godlike coding skills. I was just extremely lucky I slipped through

Hi Nivota, I think the rules are a bit more complicated than that. If I am not mistaken the T4 to T2 RLMT exemption can be applied only if the candidate completes the course entirely in the UK or at least 1 year in the UK for PhD graduates. Which means people doing 2+1 or 1+2 or any of those sort of course are not exempted from RLMT.

So if you don't need to have the RLMT done, that's 1 less hurdle for you, but you need to be clear to the people that you talk to that although you need sponsorship, an RLMT is NOT required which is going to sound different from "I need a sponsorship".

Just passed my life in the uk test. The demo test online helped a lot. The book is around 160 pages now.

How did you fulfill the English language requirement? Did you graduate from a UK university or did you take an english language test?

how did your job hunt go? any luck?
do you have any working rights in the UK?

how's your plans going? are you already in London and is it permanent or temporary?

I think option 2 is cheaper, if you are aiming for ILR after 5 years.
The problem with option 1 is that after 5 years, you qualify for ILR but your dependents don't.
So if your dependents applied say 6 months later after you, you need to extend their visa first until they reach the 5 year mark

Unless the rules have changed, your dependants visa expires when your visa expires, and they don't automatically get ILR when you do.
So you need to consider that.

You may want to check https://www.immigrationboards.com/uk-skilled-worker-visas/

If not longer than 6 months, just a tourist visa is sufficient. If longer than that, the question is which visa are you eligible to apply for? You can check yourself at:
https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa

There's no visa for people who owns company overseas, even the Tier 1 Investor visa route has closed this year. Skilled worker visa is probably the easiest, but is dependent on having an eligible employer to sponsor you.

Hi, there is no route for siblings to migrate even if your brother has ILR/citizenship. The most practical route is to get a job in UK with a company that can sponsor a visa. Either that or the education route. Those are the 2 most common route.

Ultimately if you want to move to UK, you would still need a job to support yourself.

You can use this link to check for available types of visa:
https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa

I'm in cloud too. LinkedIn , Indeed.

What's your visa status in UK? Do you have need sponsorship?

Your best shot is applying for the large companies like Amazon on their website.

They do their interviews online, and they will sponsor your visa if you are successful