Tier 2 Extension, and potential job change, am I late?

[peterms]

Hello my situation is a bit convoluted so hopefully, I do a good job at explaining it:

I am currently on a tier 2 work visa which is due to expire in 6 weeks. At the same time, I am in the process of interviewing at a different company that may offer me a position(with sponsorship). My current employer is probably going to start the process of requesting a new CoS on Monday.

1. My first question is am I late for requesting that?

As far as I understood from the Gov.UK guidance is that as long as the application is submitted before my expiry date I should be ok to continue working after expiry meanwhile the process is ongoing for the extension.

2. My second question is. If I were to receive an offer from the potential new employer as of next week (5 weeks from expiry) is that reasonable for me to apply for a Skilled Worker visa with them instead of the extension with my current company?

3. My third question. If I do get an offer and apply for the skilled worker visa (Changing companies) would I be able to go past the expiry date of my visa in order to meet my notice period? Or would I need to ensure that my notice period does not go over the validity of my visa?

Thanks in advance for any advice, I have tried contacting the Home office to clarify timelines but they were not very helpful and gave me ambiguous answers.

[Waseem432000]

I am not too sure about notice period and change of employer scenario so do wait for someone with better knowledge to answer that but your current employer just have to assign you a COS and as long as they have one available from their yearly allocation, that shouldn’t take more than a day or two to assign you COS for extension which means you can fill in your online application and submit the application after paying visa fees and IHS before your current leave to remain expires and once you submit an application online and pay the fees, you are not overstayer and can continue to work for your current employer until you application is decided.

My leave expires at end of this month and even tough I submitted my online application on 20th June, I could only get a free appointment to submit my biometrics on 20th July which means my application won’t be decided before my current leave ends but I have confirmed with my employer and I can continue working while my application is decided.

[giriz]

I am not too sure ......

Hi Waseem,

May i ask you about your biometrics appointment? Is it just the collection of biometrics or any sort of interview happens..Also i am not told to carry anything apart from passports, BRPs to the appointment by the person advising me. Is it the case? Appreciate your response, my appt is on Tue (27-Jul)

[Waseem432000]

I only took our passports and BRPs with us and they did checked our passports at the entry and also scanned them at our biometrics but aside from a friendly chat with the staff member who took our biometrics about covid and overall job market in the UK, everything was quite routine. I have never heard anyone being interviewed at their biometrics as in rare cases HO may want to interview someone, they will contact them later. The staff at biometrics are simply responsible for data entry as they are a private firm and not even part of Home Office.

[giriz]

Thanks a lot Waseem..