Will that be difficult visa wise since he is from the EU and not the UK? So many obstacles and hurdles in the way! Just gets worse every year it seems, unreal!
You probably won't want to hear this, but it's actually very, very easy visa-wise if he is from the EU.
Being married to an EU citizen gives BertineC the automatic right to live and work in the UK without a UK visa.
All they have to do is apply for a free of charge EEA Family Permit, proving that they are married and that the EU citizen is exercising EEA Treaty Rights in the UK (by working, studying, looking for work or being self-sufficient). This will give them the right to live and work in the UK and claim any and all UK benefits.
After moving to the UK, they then pay £55 to apply for a 5-year residence card and then after those 5 years, they automatically become permanent residents... they just pay another £55 for confirmation of permanent residence.
My plan for now is to accept a job offer and save up for a few months. If I save up enough for the legal visa fees a company said they would send in the application for tier 2; however, will see if that still stands in 6 months time.
What legal fees do they need to cover? Are they already on the Tier 2 Sponsor register? If so, then all they should need to do is carry out the resident labour market test (by advertising the job in the UK and EU for 28 days) and then pay £184 for a Certificate of Sponsorship for you.
If they are not yet on the Tier 2 sponsor register, it will cost them about £1,000 to apply for a sponsor licence - last I heard, it was taking more than 6 months to process the licence applications - and then £184 for the sponsorship certificate.
Again also not sure how this Labour Market Test will work. It could screw me over big time!
For the resident labour market test they have to do one of the following:
- advertise the job in the UK for 28 days. If they find no suitable UK or EU workers, they can hire you.
OR
- advertise the job in 2 stages, for a total of 28 calendar days and each stage must be for at least 7 days. I.e. advertise for 14 days, then they can appoint a UK worker immediately if one is found... or if no one is found, they must advertise it for a further 14 days before they can hire a non-UK/EU worker.
The main problem to overcome with the Resident Labour Market test is the fact that unemployment is still high and there are a lot of UK and EU workers (especially new graduates) looking for jobs... so the chances of a company not being able to find a suitable UK/EU worker and having to hire from overseas are fairly low... unless the job is quite specialised and there aren't many people who are actually qualified to do it.