Immigration | Don't have a foreign visa sponsor licence? You're behind the competition

The talent shortage is the top of most HR departments’ woes, and unfortunately, despite best efforts, it is abating at a snail’s pace. While internal training, education and promotion remain the best long-term fix, welcoming foreign talent to your company shores is a viable and smart solution – not only does immigration stimulate the economy, but as has been proven inarguably that diversity improves the bottom line and company culture. Now, various companies across sectors in the UK widening their talent pool by searching through the immigration sector.

Obviously, immigration and emigration of both Brits to other countries and EU skilled talent to our ports almost completely stopped over the past two years. But in 2021 and 2022, the number of émigrés jumped, as did the number of Skilled Worker visas issued by the Home Office. This will be due to the increase in applications from companies seeking to sponsor worker visas.

Visas by number

According to analysis of Home Office numbers by law firm Evershed Sutherland, the number of skilled worker visas granted Q4 2021 alone rose 131% from Q4 2020 – meaning at least 25,555 skilled workers helped companies tackle the issues caused by Brexit and the Great Resignation.

From a statement by Evershed Sutherland: “While figures for EU workers are not available per sector the industry bringing in the most Skilled Workers from overseas was Human Health and Social Work, which recruited 29,128 people on Skilled Worker visas in 2021. This reached its highest levels yet in Q4 2021 at 8,990 - a 48% year on year increase (Q4 2020, 6,064).

Information and Communications was the second highest recruiting industry for foreign Skilled Worker visas (YoY: 230%), followed by Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities (YoY: 216%), Financial and Insurance (2021, 6,961 and Q4 2021 2,192 YoY 204%), Education (2021, 4,172 and Q4 2021 1,232 YoY 115%) and Manufacturing (2021, 3,127 and Q4 2021 1,025 YoY 302%).”

But immigration is harder now

So, now we’ve convinced you that immigration should be part of your long-term talent pipeline. But how do you navigate the time-consuming quagmire of visa rules and work sponsorship? And hasn’t Brexit, rather than solving all of the UK’s problems, just made visas more expensive for companies? Well, yes. But Grapevine Leaders spoke to Louisa Cole from Evershed Sutherland, who has some excellent advice for those seeking talent abroad.

HRGV: In your work as an immigration solicitor, what have you found is the reason for skilled worker shortages in the UK and how can we combat that?

Cole: The requirement for skilled foreign workers has increased dramatically recently, and we’ve seen that in information & comms, the financial services sector and scientific & technical areas [including engineering and research] , particularly as our firm works with large global clients.

I think the reason for these dramatic changes is, of course, Brexit, where we saw the end of free movement; but because of the pandemic stunted global mobility and obviously travel was incredibly difficult.

Previously, it was a little harder to quantify the number of workers we had coming in from the EU to feel to fill top skilled jobs in the UK. Now that free movement ended, it's becoming clear that a large portion of the skilled talent that's coming into the UK is from the EU and now, those individuals can't just freely move to UK and to come to work, they need a visa to do that. That means they need to fit into one of one of the sponsored visa categories for work.

The most popular of those categories is the Skilled Worker Visa.

HRGV: What does the process look like now for companies post-Brexit and pandemic? And when would you advise them to seek the help of an immigration solicitor?

Cole: If you’re in HR and you want to look or talent abroad, the first step is to, of course, look for talent abroad. And if you find broadly what you’re looking for, the next step is that you’ll need to sponsor any non-UK nationals to come and work for you. You’ll need to apply for something called a sponsor license, which is basically the blanket government approval to bring skilled workers to work for you as a business in the UK.

At this point is usually when the company would come to an immigration firm to seek counsel and help preparing to be a sponsor. We can explore any other visa routes that might be helpful, along with the main business routes. Visa categories change often, so I’d advise talent managers to make sure they keep abreast of these changes.

The sponsor licence takes a couple of months, so we advise allowing for plenty of time between identifying the need for non-UK-national talent and the completion of the process. Once you've got the sponsor license in place that takes a couple of months, and then we can assist with actually applying for the skilled worker visa. That involves meeting a certain salary threshold [for the position] and the role needs to be one that meets a certain skill level. The potential employee needs to meet an English Language requirement as well.

There are ways to expedite the process as well, which we can help with. Once that visa has been obtained the person can enter the UK and then start working for the employer.

HRGV: Do you think companies need to include sponsor licences as a key part of their talent strategy?

Cole: As a business, we were doing a huge drive around the time of Brexit to warn employers that they really should start to think about getting a sponsor license if they didn't have one previously, in preparation for the end of free movement. Because it was clear that many industries would experience skill shortages and there is still have this huge war for talent. Having a sponsor license helps businesses to remain competitive, I think, in the global market and to bring in the best of the best to your company.

In the UK we've got something called the Shortage Occupation list [produced by the Home Office] which lists all of the jobs that are that are basically in in short supply of talent in the UK and that we do need recruit globally for to fill some positions in the UK. We just don't have the talent to fill those positions or to fill all of those positions in the UK, so I think global mobility is has always been important and will remain an important tool in the war for talent and I think.

Having a sponsor license and allowing individuals to move globally, whether that be to the UK or from it,
remains sort of attractive to potential employees and I think that does help attract the best workers.

In the war for talent in the UK, it’s never been more important for businesses to have a sponsor licence.