Hi all - I wanted to pass along a possibly recent change I'm experiencing in my expatriation efforts.
I intended to expatriate under a qualifying visa where time would allocate to ILR and within my own company. That meant a Tier 2 General under Worker Shortage. Working with my own immigration lawyer in London, we found an appropriate SOC code from the current list. I took the cut/paste of my Job Description and current Role in my company and sent it up my chain of command for corporate approval and liaising with our vending immigration company (Fragomen).
Earlier in the engagement (October, 2017), Fragomen had spelled out the list of requirements to apply for a General, including the RLMT, etc. When I'd brought up Worker Shortage, their statement was that was an option to bypass RLMT so long as it existed on the SOC list (which I already knew because my immigration lawyer and I worked that out the previous month, September). A note was that a Tier 2 General under Worker Shortage also required the sponsoring company to qualify as an A-Rated sponsor. My company is on that list, so no worries there.
Cut to today. Fragomen has informed my UK HR department that
I cannot qualify under the proposed SOC Code or in the Worker Shortage List at all because my company, the sponsor, employs more than 250 people. A further disqualifier is that my company is more than 25% owned by another company that employs more than 250 people..
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-k-shortage-occupation-list also displays the language. A change log states this page was updated on January 11th, 2018.
This restriction was not brought up in any previous conversations exploring the option; either with my own immigration lawyer nor from the corporate counsel. My conclusion, therefore, is that this appears to be a new restriction.
