WHV to HSMP (or tier 1)?

[moose]

Hi there

I'm an aussie on a WHV in the UK - I've been working for just under 7 months here. I was hoping to switch to an HSMP visa after 12 months, until they went and changed the bloody rules

Ideally, I'd like to be able to switch in country, which means applying sometime before the HSMP becomes tier 1 (march? is there a confirmed date yet?). Unfortunately, based purely on my UK earnings, I'll only have enough points at the end of April to qualify.

Is it possible to combine my Australian earnings and UK earnings? If I did this I'd qualify.

I've also read that they pro-rata your income based on the country you've spent the most time in. This would mean that I could provide evidence of 5 months of Australian income, 7 months of UK income and they'd pro-rata the UK income (ie divide by 7 and multiply by 12) to determine how many points I'd earn. I'd qualify this way too.

Then I also read that you can't switch to an HSMP from a WHV until you've been on the WHV for 12 months. By that time, tier 1 will have come in which specifically disallows an in country switch.

If we assume that all of the above won't work, this leaves me with applying under the new tier 1 system, which I believe would involve returning to Australia to apply. I've read in a few places it takes 4-6 weeks to get an initial approval letter and then entry clearance sorted out - would I need to return to Australia for the entire time, or just for the entry clearance? Furthermore, is an out of country switch even possible too? The statement of intent wasn't particularly clear to me.

Apologies for the length of this. I wonder if I'm asking questions that can't be answered yet.

[gordon]

Re: switching, I can't see anything in the immigration rules that limits switching into HSMP to those working holidaymakers who have been here in that capacity for 12 or more months. Where did you read of such a restriction ?

Liam Byrne suggested earlier that Tier 1 would be rolled out in March (of course, what was said may not inform what they actually do). As your case may be relatively straightforward, you might apply for initial approval asap and hope for approval soon enough to submit an FLR (HSMP) application while you still can.

Re: income proration, you can ask them to prorate your UK income for (say) seven months, while you provide evidence also for the previous five months' earnings in Australia. Or you can convert your Australian earnings from within your 12-month claimed earnings period into sterling, and add them to the UK earnings within that selected 12-month, with no proration. You'd have to submit the same evidence from both countries regardless of whether proration were requested.

AG

[moose]

cheers for the reply

To be honest, I'm not 100% sure where I read that - been researching this too much. It may have been a post by Victoria who was under the impression that the HSMP falls under the same restrictions as work permits, which at some stage I'm sure had that sort of restriction. This was in a relatively old post though so it's probably inaccurate now.

Assuming there is no restriction then what you've suggested sounds like a good idea. It did just occur to me though that in the previous 12 months, I've only worked ten (took a month off to go holidaying while on the way to the UK, and took a while to get set up here). I assume thus that I'd need to prorate my income based on 10months of employment (ie UK earnings so far divided by 7, multiplied by 10).

I at first read the SoI pessimistically too, but chose to be optimistic for my own peace of mind - it will be interesting to see what happens when the system is implemented.

If all the above fails I may have to look at talking to my employer about a work permit, or taking a break for a month or two until I've been living with my EU citizen-partner for 2 years. But that's for another time/thread..