Hi folks,
I was interested to see where timelines are on average, so I copied all the applications listed here since early March (and a few back to January, but not all), and put all the stages in columns, adding a total for the days each stage too. A few things I've learned:
- Biometrics seems to have been introduced around the beginning of April
- Before April, payment used to be taken within a week, mostly. Since April, payment is taken between 21 and 28 days after receipt by UKBA, with an average of 24 days.
- Acknowledgement arrives 1-8 days later, 3.3 on average.
- Invitation for Biometrics varies a bit more - between 0 and 14 days after, 1.8 on average.
- Unless I missed one, no one who applied since the beginning of April - i.e. since the process changed - has gotten further than submitting biometrics.
- The total time before April was in the 6-8 week range, with the time between receiving Acknowledgement and Approval around 3-4 weeks, so assuming that's not going any slower, I'm guessing we'll start seeing updates from people who applied in early April soon
Do take this with the proverbial grain of salt - it's just an observation from a very small (self selected) sample. I just hate the uncertainty so I find ways like this to feel like I have some handle on how things are going...