Bringing young workers on Tier2

[pencillin]

Hi All

It's been many years since I last visited this brilliant forum, it helped me in the past I hope it's still going strong.

I work for an established company (10 years old) we're a small IT company (around 12 in total)

There are two very clever young computer nerds that I would like to sponsor from outside the EU. They are very young (20 and 19 years) so don't have degrees but they are extremely clever and a lot better than many senior programmers we have.

I was wondering if it's at all possible to sponsor them for a visa to come to the UK somehow. Our company desperately need their services and we are very genuine.

Do you think a tier2 certificate of sponsorship can be given to them since they don't have bachelor degrees.

Thanks

[manci]

Not a problem. Provided the company has a current sponsor licence they can apply for restricted CoSs for them. Their jobs must be NQF level 6 and they must be paid min. salaries for a 39 hour working week as per the appropriate SOC code or £20,300, whichever the higher. Because of their ages they will be considered "new entrants". Formal qualifications don't come into it.
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitec ... orkers.pdf

Once they have been assigned CoSs they will have to apply for entry clearance from their home country and have to satisfy the Tier 2 General requirements:
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitec ... idance.pdf

[pencillin]

Perfect thanks a lot manci

So we don't have a ponsor license yet, we have hired a company to go through the appllication as we are all too busy to do it ourselves (we tried but it was too much paper work).

What's weird is that the company mentioned it might not be possible because our field (software engineering) would mean that the people we sponsor has to have a graduate degrees. is this rubbish? I'm concerned now cause they should be the professionals and they should know better.

We have a genuine and urgent need to bring these two people, they are geniuses and we are happy to pay them more than the minimum wage.

Thanks

[manci]

They will have to satisfy the English language requirements. One way of doing this is to have a degree taught in English from an approved college. If they don't have such a degree there are other ways, see Part 6 of the polcy guidance (second link above).

Regarding your other question (education) read para 66 of the policy guidance.

[Jeeves]

As manci has said there is no rule to prevent this, however, Entry Clearance applications can be refused where the Entry Clearance Officer (ECO) is not satisifed the applicant qualifies. So if, for example, the ECO was not satisifed these 2 individuals had the necessary skills to do this job their visa application could be refused.