Tier 2 Visa

Tier 2 Visa (General) route is for migrants who have been offered a place to work in the UK and are being sponsored by UKVI authorised employers. It is the main immigration route for the skilled workers to be employed in the UK.

You can apply for a Tier 2 Visa (General) if you are outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland and have been offered a skilled job in the UK from a UK employer with a valid Tier 2 sponsorship licence.

Your proposed employer must be a UK based entity which holds a UKVI sponsorship licence. If the prospective employer does not have a sponsor licence, it may be possible to apply for one.

The applicant must be issued with a certificate of sponsorship (CoS) by his employer. CoS holds information on the migrant and the proposed job. The visa or Leave to Remain (LTR) will be issued for the period stated in CoS. The CoS must also confirm that the applicant will be paid appropriate salary and that the job passed Residence Labour Market Test (RLMT) unless the applicant is switching inside the UK from Tier 4 (General) student visa and meets additional requirements. The CoS will then be used to make an application for Tier 2 (General) visa or LTR.

Tier 2 Visa Point Attributes

You will need to score 70 points in total under the following attributes for your Tier 2 visa application.

Requirements for Tier 2 Visa – General

You must have a valid certificate of sponsorship (COS) from your employer meeting one of the following requirements (30 points to be claimed):
- the job has an annual salary of £155,300 or more;
- the sponsor has completed a Resident Labour Market Test;
- the job is on the shortage occupation list;
This certificate means that your employer must be licensed and able to employ non-EEA nationals to work for them, having gained the authority of the UKBA/Home Office. If you are unsure of whether your employer is approved, Reiss Edwards can assist in confirming this for you. If your employer does not have a sponsor licence, call us so we can help with a licence application. There are various types of licences and requirements, depending on what you and your employer require. We have a designated corporate immigration team able to assist you with securing a sponsor licence and a Tier 2 visa.
Appropriate salary and allowances (20 points to be claimed).

Your position must be regarded as skilled by the UKBA to apply for a Tier 2 (General) visa, and thus be on the UKBA’s occupation list or Shortage Occupation list. If your job title is considered to be skilled, you will also be required to earn a minimum salary which will match the job title; this information is broken down into Standard Codes of Practice (SOC codes).

Please note, you must have an offer of a skilled job and paid at least £20,800 per annum in accordance to the UK Visas & Immigration Codes of Practice. If the UKBA/Home Office regards your skill as a shortage skill, you may be exempt from some of the requirements. These exemptions include the need to advertise the job to the UK labour market.

If you earn over a set salary which is currently £155,300, you may be entitled to further exemptions when applying.
You must meet the English language requirement (10 point to be claimed)

You must provide the specified documents to show that you have a good knowledge of English to the required standard of CEFR B1 level. There are three ways in which you can show you meet the English language requirement.
1. Being a national of a majority English speaking country; or
2. Passing an English language test approved by the UKVI (IELTS or Trinity College) at B1 level of the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework CEFR; or
3. Holding a degree that was taught in English and is equivalent to a UK bachelor’s degree or above.
You must score at least 10 points for English language (Appendix B of the Immigration Rules).
You must meet the maintenance requirement (10 points to be claimed)

You must have at least £945 of personal savings which must have been held in your bank account for a consecutive 90 day period prior to the date of application.

Your employer can certify the maintenance for you, this must be confirmed on your Certificate of Sponsorship. Please note, only A-rated (Premium), A-rated (SME+) or A-rated sponsors can certify your maintenance;

If you are applying together with your dependents, you must show that you have an extra £630 of personal savings for each family member to support, which must have been held for a consecutive 90 day period prior to the date of application.

Please note, the family member can also rely on his/her own personal savings.

Your sponsor might also be able to certify the maintenance for your dependents.

You must score at least 10 points for maintenance.

If you hold certain types of visas, you may also qualify for an exemption from some Tier 2 visa requirements.

Certificate of Sponsorship for Tier 2 Visa

A Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) required for Tier 2 visa application is an electronic record that holds your personal and your job information. A CoS is not a certificate as in a paper document, it’s a digital certificate reference number.

Your employer will provide you with a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) number that you will need to make a valid Tier 2 Visa application.

The Certificate of Sponsorship reference number is valid for three months from the date of the issue and the CoS reference number can only be used for one application.

FLR – Further Leave to Remain – Tier 2 Visa Extensions

You can further extend your leave to remain in the UK under the Tier 2 (General) visa. You must apply for the extension before your current leave to remain expires.

In addition to the current permission to stay on Tier 2 (General) visa, you will need to fulfil the following criteria to extend your Tier 2 visa.

You still need to be employed at the same job that you used to obtain the leave to remain or enter the UK.
You need to be working for the same employer with a valid Tier 2 Sponsorship Licence who sponsored for your application.

Cooling off period for Tier 2 Visa

Where a migrant leaves the UK prior to the expiry of his Tier 2 leave, he/she will be subject to 12 months cooling off period (with some exceptions), whereby it will not be possible to enter Tier 2 route again unless 12 months passed from the time the person left the UK.

ILR – Settlement after Tier 2 Visa

Tier 2 (General) visa leads to Settlement/Indefinite Leave to Remain – ILR after 5 years. The maximum time one can spend in Tier 2 (General) route is 6 years. When applying for settlement, the applicant must meet a number of requirements:

Must spend at least 5 years continuously in the UK as a Tier 2 (General) migrant or as a mixture of certain routes with most recent leave as a Tier 2 (General) migrant;
Annual salary must be at least £35,000 (will increase further from 6 April 2018) or in accordance with the relevant SOC, whichever is higher;
Must satisfy Knowledge of Language and Life (KoLL) requirements;
Must not have been absent from the UK for more than 180 days in each qualifying year;
Must provide specified documents in support of the application.

You can make an application for ILR following Tier 2 route after 5 years of the qualifying period or 28 days before you will reach the qualifying period. Your qualifying period starts from the day your initial application for entry clearance or leave to remain in the UK is approved.

Applications for Leave to Remain and Indefinite Leave to Remain can be made by post, premium post (for LTR applications only, decision within 10 working days) or using same day service.

See our Tier 2 ILR – Indefinite Leave to Remain guide if you are considering settlement options under your Tier 2 General Visa.