I have been living in the UK for over two years. Initially, I moved here on a work visa, which imposes certain restrictions on the holder: you can work only for the company that invited you, but in order to get a permanent residence permit, you need to live on a work visa for five years. Since I like the country as a whole, I decided to try to improve my immigration status faster and get a “ Tier 1 Exceptional Talent ”. In my opinion, this visa is the best British visa, about which, oddly enough, not all people considering the possibility of moving here know.
In this article I will share my personal experience in obtaining such a visa. Just in case, I am not an immigration adviser and this article is not a guide to action. If you decide to get a talent visa and you have questions - contact the official website of the British government and qualified lawyers.
A talent visa allows you to live in the UK, work with any employer, be the head of the organization, do business, work as a self-employed or not work at all. In addition, a visa allows you to get a permanent residence permit in the UK after three years, and not after five, as with a regular work visa. Accelerated obtaining a permanent residence permit is important for me for one more reason. After moving to the UK, my daughter was born, and children born on British soil have the right to obtain local citizenship, provided that one of the parents has a permanent residence permit.
A talent visa is not for everyone. As its name implies, you need to be able to confirm your achievements in one of the professions that are suitable for this visa.
The full list is on the website of the British government, at the time of writing, it includes the following areas of activity:
- Natural Sciences
- Engineering
- Humanitarian sciences
- Medicine
- Digital technology
- Art
- Fashion
- Architecture
- Cinema and television
The main disadvantage of a visa is that it is quite difficult to obtain. This is due to the fact that the number of issued visas is not more than 2,000 per year for all professions. As a result, there are 200-400 visas per year for each profession, which is quite a bit. Compare this, for example, with regular work visas, which are issued almost 100,000 a year. Nevertheless, as my experience shows, it is quite possible to get one. Next, I will tell you my experience of getting it.
This plastic card is a visa. It is also called Biometric Residence Permit (BRP).
UK Talent Visa Process
The process is fully described on the UK government website . In brief, I will retell it from the point of view of my experience.
The process of obtaining a visa is two-step. In the first step, you need to get support from the organization assigned to your area of activity, in the second step you can already apply for the visa itself.
Step 1. Get Approval
Since my main profession is a software developer, I applied for a visa as an expert in the field of digital technologies, so I will tell the process exactly for this profession. For other professions, the process may be slightly different.
In the case of digital technology, Tech Nation UK is the organization that evaluates your talents.
It’s best to start by reviewing the brochure on Tech Nation UK.
In general, to get support from Tech Nation UK, you had to demonstrate one of 2 key criteria and two of four qualifications.
Key criteria (one of two needs to be demonstrated)
- Proven experience in creating innovative solutions in the field of digital technology.
- Evidence of your recognition in digital technology beyond your core work.
Qualification criteria (two out of four need to be demonstrated)
- Demonstrate that you have taken the digital technology industry forward.
- Demonstrate your recognition as a leading specialist in digital technology. Unlike the 2nd key criterion, there is no requirement that this should be outside the workplace.
- Demonstrate that you are constantly learning new technologies and gaining new experience in digital technology
- Prove your exceptional abilities in the field by demonstrating your contribution through published scientific publications.
If you do not meet these criteria, then you can apply for a visa as an “exceptional promise”, the criteria for them are a little simpler. These can be found in the brochure on Tech Nation UK. An Exceptional Promise visa is different in that you can apply for a permanent residence permit after 5 years, and not after 3 years.
In order to demonstrate your skills you need to collect up to 10 evidence.
Proof can be anything - letters from employers, published articles, recommendations from former colleagues, your page on github, etc. In my case, I demonstrated:
- The articles published on Habré
- Letters from organizations where I taught Big Data and Machine Learning courses
- Several letters of recommendation from past workplaces and from former colleagues
- A letter from the university about my studies there
- Normal help from your current job
- Letter from a student I was a research supervisor at the University of Edinburgh
It was also necessary to have two (now already requiring three) letters of recommendation from high-level managers in serious organizations. It is desirable that the organizations are international, but, as practice has shown, respected Russian organizations are also suitable. I managed to get several letters that fit this criterion, and in the end I attached one letter of recommendation from a person who held a high position in Yandex, and another from a person from Tinkoff Bank.
In addition to the set of documents to be sent, you need to attach your resume and a cover letter explaining why you decided to apply for this visa and why you think you are worthy to get it. It is rather strange for a person who grew up in Russia to write such a letter, because in our culture it is somehow not customary to praise oneself.
In my case, collecting all the documents took a couple of months, mainly due to the fact that it was necessary to contact a large number of people and organizations, some of which were rather slow.
After that, I uploaded all the documents to the Tech Nation UK website, filled out the visa application form on the Home Office website (British Migration Service), paid the visa fee for the first step, and began to wait for a solution from Tech Nation UK.
After about a month and a half, I received an email saying that my profile meets the criteria of Tech Nation UK and they support my talent visa application.
Step 2. We apply for a visa
Once you have received approval in step 1, you can apply for a visa. This step is simple and not much different from applying for other visas. In fact, it turned out to be even easier than applying for, for example, a Schengen visa, since all you need to have is a letter of support from step one. Failure in the second step is not very likely if you are a respectable citizen, do not participate in terrorist activities and have not violated British laws.
Unlike many other British visas, you do not even need to take an English exam to get a talent visa.
My family and I filled out an online application, paid a visa and medical fee, went to the neighboring city of Glasgow to take our biometric data, and began to wait. A little more than 8 weeks later we received a visa in the mail.
When filing from outside the UK, the process will be faster, three weeks instead of eight. Also in this case, the visa itself, which is a plastic card of standard sizes, you will receive in the UK. A short-term visa for one month will be pasted into your passport. Another difference when applying from Russia is that you will need to take a tuberculosis test, since Russia belongs to the list of countries where the situation with tuberculosis is not very good.
You can apply for a visa for up to 5 years if you succumb within the UK, and up to 5 years and 4 months if you succumb outside of it.
Cost
The most unpleasant moment in the history of a visa is its price. All prices and conversion to rubles are relevant for December 2019.
The first step at which you apply for approval at Tech Nation UK (or another organization) costs 456 pounds (approximately 38,000 rubles). In the event that you have received approval from Tech Nation UK, the cost of a visa in the second stage will cost 152 pounds (12,500 rubles). For each member of your family you will have to pay an additional 608 pounds at this stage (50,000 rubles). In addition, you need to pay a medical fee of 400 pounds (33,000 rubles) per person per year.
Total, if you apply for a 5-year visa, you get 2,608 pounds (215,000 rubles). For a family of 4 people will go 10 432 pounds (862 000 rubles). This is not cheap, but most of the costs are for medical fees, which must be paid for any British immigration visa. In return, you are given the opportunity to receive medical services in the UK, the quality of which is considered one of the best in the world ( 18th place in the rating of the World Health Organization ).
| 5 year visa for one person | 3-year visa for one person | Registration of a 5-year visa for 4 people. | Registration of a 3-year visa for 4 people. | |
| 1st stage | 456 | 456 | 456 | 456 |
| 2nd stage | 152 | 152 | 1976 | 1976 |
| Medical fee | 2000 | 1200 | 8000 | 4800 |
| Total | 2608 | 1808 | 10432 | 7232 |
The cost of obtaining a talent visa. All amounts in GBP. If you need to take a tuberculosis test, you will have to pay for it separately.
After getting a visa
A visa allows you and your family members to live in the UK. You can’t work as a doctor, athlete or sports coach. You may not even work at all, but later, when extending your visa or applying for a residence permit, you will need to demonstrate that you had earnings in your professional field.
After 3 (or 5 on an Exceptional Promise visa) years of life, you can apply for a permanent residence permit. If you, like me, switch to this visa from a work visa, then the time that you lived on the previous visa is counted in the period of residence. When applying for a residence permit, you will need to demonstrate income in your professional field, pass an English test and a test of knowledge of history and life in the UK.
If you have questions about my experience of obtaining a talent visa - feel free to ask them in the comments :)