Home Office study evaluates the Global Talent visa

The Home Office has published new research on the Global Talent visa, the route designed to attract to the UK talented and promising individuals in the fields of science and research, digital technology, and the arts. The report provides interesting data and feedback on the route and suggests ways it can be improved. We’ll speak to one of our immigration lawyers to gauge how the visa is working in practice.

A reminder. The Global Talent visa was introduced in February 2020 to replace the Tier 1 (Exceptional Talent) visa and make the process smoother, faster, and more attractive for exceptionally talented people to live and work in the UK. In order to understand how the visa is working, the Home Office commissioned Ipsos to conduct a multi-wave, mixed-methods research study with successful Global Talent visa holders. This report covers the second wave of the research, which included an online survey completed by 4,025 successful visa holders, 10 case study interviews, and 25 in-depth interviews.

In summary, the report found that ‘the flexibility provided by the visa’ and ‘the opportunity to settle in the UK’ were the main factors as to why applicants chose this route. Successful applicants can work for any organisation or employer, within or outside of their field, and be employed or self-employed, so the flexibility of this route is attractive. Also, the route can lead to accelerated Indefinite Leave to Remain after three years residence in the UK which, again, is attractive. 

So, let’s hear how this particular visa route is working in practice. Shara Pledger is an immigration specialist and earlier she joined me by video-link to discuss it. I put it to Shara that it’s a route that is gaining popularity as a means of plugging skills gaps:

Shara Pledger: “Yes, I would agree that that is the experience really. I think that Global Talent has been one of those categories that has really seen a very big increase, particularly post-Brexit. So, pre-Brexit it was a route that was, well, it's still reserved for what we like to call the brightest and best - you'll always see that kind of referred to in the media - and it’s still very much a route that's reserved for that category of people but, I think, the difference that we see now is, obviously there's a much wider cohort of people that may well be interested in this as a possible route. So, ultimately, we have this huge group of European workers who obviously previously didn't need any kind of sponsorship who are now potentially eligible to look at this as a route and that's why we've seen this kind of explosion really in, particularly, areas such as higher education and their use of Global Talent in order to fill their skills gaps and we are now slowly starting to see that replicated in other sectors as well, which is very encouraging. It's quite a diverse route, it doesn't cover absolutely everything, but it does cover a fair amount.”

Joe Glavina: “As you are well aware, Shara, Global Talent is often compared to Skilled Worker – they’re both useful ways to fill skills gaps – yet the two are actually very different.”

Shara Pledger: “Global Talent is reserved for quite an exclusive category of people. So, it works very differently to Skilled Worker. Skilled Worker obviously has the support that comes directly from the entity that will be engaging, or employing, that individual worker. So that's why if you look at the register of skilled workers you'll see 70,000 plus names on that register and the different permissions that they have to sponsor people. When it comes to Global Talent, we have this very, very small pool of what we call endorsing bodies instead. So obviously, it only does focus on particular expertise, particular sectors, which is a huge change compared to the Skilled Worker route and it does mean that, obviously, the number of places is a lot lower. If you compare the numbers of Global Talent compared with the numbers of Skilled Worker it really is a tiny, tiny proportion of those and, of course, in terms of global net migration as a whole in the UK it's a very, very small proportion of that as well. So, it is always going to be specific individuals who are going to qualify for this particular route but when they do, there's just so much benefit to doing that. Not needing the support of a sponsor is not just a benefit for the employee, it's also a benefit for the organisation. It means that their costs are lower, not just in terms of the financial outlay for sponsorship, but also the amount of scrutiny, and constant monitoring, that a sponsored worker would need. So, it does allow a lot of flexibility on both sides of that equation, really. I always refer to it as being the most beneficial visa you can get into really because not only do you have this flexibility in terms of what you can do, where you can do it, when you can do it, you also have, in many cases, an accelerated route to settlement, again, which is going to save you time and money in the long run.”

Joe Glavina: “One of the attractions of the Global Talent visa is the ability to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain after spending a continuous period of just three years in the UK, rather than the usual five. How important is that proving to be in practice?”

Shara Pledger: “For the vast majority of applicants who apply under Global Talent that three year accelerated settlement route is really, really important. It's only really when you're looking at people who are emerging talent in the fields of arts, culture, digital technology, that will need to rely on a five-year settlement route as well and this is obviously a huge game changer compared to a lot of other immigration routes the vast majority of which do have a five-year settlement period and I think it's quite easy to overlook how significant that is. Financially, obviously, it's very beneficial for the individual if they're paying their costs for the employer if they're funding any of the applications, but also just in terms of peace of mind. It allows people to put down those roots and get settled in the UK much more quickly which, ultimately, is good for the economy because it allows people to grow their own business and all of that kind of stuff.”

Joe Glavina: “There has been a lot of press coverage recently around the government’s push to cut net migration and we’ve seen restrictions on the ability of visa holders to bring family members with them to the UK. With Global Talent do they have the right to come here?”

Shara Pledger: “They have. Now this is not a route that the Home Office is currently looking to squeeze in relation to family members. We've seen that already. We've obviously seen it at the start of the year relation to students. We've just seen it in March in relation to care workers. What we're not seeing is that replicated in a lot of other immigration routes and Global Talent is one of the ones that's currently unaffected. One quirk, however, in this route which is a little bit unusual and can take people by surprise is while the main applicant has this accelerated route to settlement of three years, which is not replicated for family, so family will still need to be here for five years. So you still have all of that ability to bring partners, whether married or unmarried, you can still bring children under the age of eighteen but, unfortunately, they will still need to do the full five-year settlement option. So, it does mean that sometimes you end up with a little bit of a disconnect between the date that the original applicant is going to be settling and the date that their family might be settling afterwards.”

Joe Glavina: “Global Talent is a very flexible route, Shara, as you’ve described, with individuals are not tied to any single employer and they are free to move jobs which means in theory an employer could lose that person to another business, even a competitor. Is that a concern?” 

Shara Pledger: “Yes, I think it's a valid consideration but, ultimately, I'm not sure whether it should be the determining factor as to what route to go down. I think if we wound the clock back to the pre-December 2020 changes, so the pre-Brexit, immigration changes, this idea of a skilled worker being almost sort of tethered to their sponsor was a lot more relevant. It was much harder to switch in a lot of categories, it was much more difficult to get permission to come into the UK in the first place, that kind of stuff, so it was definitely the case that it would be much more important for a particular worker to stay with their original sponsor. What we saw after this sort of deregulation, if you like, so the opening up of skill level salary levels, the range of roles that are suitable for sponsorship, and also switching permissions, is that it has been much easier for people to switch from employer to employer for the last, you know, three plus years now. So, ultimately, being able to appeal to an individual worker and offer them the best possible opportunity for them is probably still going to be a good way of getting buy in, if you like for that particular individual and staying with the business. No, they won't need to get specific permission if they decide to leave and go elsewhere but, ultimately, it's not that difficult for a skilled worker to get that permission if that's something that they choose to do.”

Joe Glavina: “Reading the report, this route gets a pretty good write-up. What’s the level of interest from within your own client-base? How popular is it?” 

Shara Pledger: “I think what has been most interesting for us as practitioners over the last few months is the way that different clients are starting to get interested in Global Talent in a way that they previously weren't. So, I mean, we're currently working on an option, a digital technology application, which is for one of our clients in the scientific sectors and these aren't really things that particularly they would have been that concerned about before, they would have been focusing on Skilled Worker, focusing - obviously before Brexit - on just free movement rights, all of that kind of stuff. So just being better informed about the options that are out there is definitely helpful, even if it's just a case of crossing it off the list, at least then you're able to be able to speak with your employee and your representative and make sure that all of the available options have been considered because, as I've mentioned, there genuinely are benefits to going down the Global Talent option, if you can do that, not just for the employee but also for the employer and particularly at time, right now, when we're looking at increasing salary levels of sponsorship, we will I have no doubt be looking at probably increasing fees yet again at some point this year, so being able to make options which are cost effective and time effective are always going to be a benefit regardless of whether or not the person is linked to you or otherwise.”

That report on the Global Talent visa was published on 28 March and is called: ‘Global Talent visa evaluation: Wave 2 report’ and gives a useful insight as to how this route is working in practice. We’ve put a link to it in the transcript of this programme for you.

LINKS
- Link to Home Office report on the Global Talent visa