Best way to live+work in UK, semi-permanently?

I'm looking for a way to live in the same city as my French girlfriend next year, and the UK looks like a great option - if I am allowed in. Thank you VERY much for your help. I've been all over the UKBA website and my chances look pretty grim, so I'm crossing my fingers for "insider" information. I'll give all the information I have, I apologize if some or much of it is irrelevant. I'm hoping to have these questions answered:

1) How might I best move to the UK on a semi-permanent (more than 6 months) basis? Which visa should I apply for?

2) Would getting sponsored to work in the UK improve my chances of, within a year or two, being able to legally work self-employed (as of now, I'm considering becoming an accredited life coach)?

Another question I need advice for: if I can legally live/work in London for 1-5 years, does this improve my chances of legally being able to work in other EU countries? Can I get UK/EU citizenship in 5 or so years?

- I'm from the US. In May, I'll graduate from a top-10 US college, in the top 10% of my class, with a Bachelors degree in psychology, lots of business classes, and a minor in Italian. I am fluent in English, Italian, and Spanish, and conversational in French. Studied last year in Bologna and lived in Paris for the summer, fell in love with a girl and with Europe in general. London, too, when I visited.
- She will graduate in August with a masters degree in International Communications. She is fluent in English, French, and Spanish, and highly conversational in Italian.
- What I've seen says no, but...is there any way being the boyfriend of an EU citizen could help me get into the country? Is anything possible considering we haven't even lived together for more than 2 months at a time? Getting married is not on the table yet, but I'd consider other legal partnerships if they'd help...
- I do not have a career planned, yet am most inspired by the thought of running my own show. If I had to guess now, I would get trained in London for 9 months, starting in May, to get my CPCC (life coach accreditation), then build up a client base.
- Perhaps I could get a student visa from this - and if so, would a student visa from a training program (not a university), open my visa options afterwards?
- While training, I would preferably like to have a job to support myself. Low-level pay is fine (bartender, waiter, etc.). I also have a small-scale photography business in a niche market that few others are in (360° panoramas for restaurants, hotels and small businesses) that I could use for some income, if allowed. If it could get me into the UK, I would happily use this business as my full-time work.
(- With all modesty - does it matter that I'm smart, entrepreneurial, adaptive to other cultures, etc. at all? Or is that useless without work sponsorship? I know the UK has plenty of well-qualified graduates.)
- I would happily consider getting sponsored for a job in the UK, if that's what best gets me permission to enter the UK, but (as said in the question above) I would hope this would help open up my options for legally living+working in the UK as someone self-employed, or open up my options in the broader EU.
(- If this is clearly the best option, but I cannot find something from the US, should I consider moving to London for the summer and trying to find work from there?)

So, how can I best get into the UK on a legal, semi-permanent basis, considering this information? Is it doable, especially without getting sponsored for work? Any new ideas?


Thank you again, any help would be appreciated!

RS

Unfortunately, short of identifying a company that is willing to sponsor you for a position in the UK (and that company has to be registered as a sponsor), marriage is your best bet.  Or would you consider studying for a master's degree in the UK?

There is no visa that you can just apply for to live in the UK.  You MUST be sponsored to work by a company for a work visa, and these positions are hard to come by and usually offered only to highly skilled, experienced professionals.  Although you say you will 'happily consider getting sponsored' by an employer in the UK, it's really more that you will have to convince someone to sponsor you.  As a student who hasn't graduated from college yet, I'm sure you can imagine it would be a tough sell. Remember that a company must be able to show that there is no one in the UK/EU who can do the position for which they plan to sponsor you.

So in short, the answers to your questions are:

1) There is no visa you can apply for unless you are willing to get married or become a student;

2) Getting married is the easiest way you can work self-employed;

3) When you obtain UK citizenship, you can then work/live in the rest of the EU. You can get citizenship in '5 years or so'.  Things change rapidly in the world of visas, and the requirements for citizenship will likely do so by the time you would be eligible.

If you have a lot of $$$$$$$ to invest you may be in luck as well.

As others have mentioned, there's really no way for you to come to the UK to live and work without getting married or being a student. Married, you could work full-time, and as a student, you could work a maximum of 20 hours per week. I looked into doing the same thing six years ago, when I was dating my current husband, and I found that I had zero options, besides obtaining a fiance visa. Immigration into the UK is not easy if you simply want to come here to live and/or work.

Even as a student, once you graduate, it's becoming increasingly difficult and nearly impossible to remain here and work. I have a lot of friends who are recent graduates of universities in Edinburgh that are leaving and returning to their non-EU home countries due to this right now. A few completed their MBA's and were working with Edinburgh companies at the same time, and they found that even with MBA's from one of the UK's top universities and secure jobs, they still had no way of staying here. I do know one person that was asked to stay and teach at the university after he graduated, and was sponsored by them, but this is rare. So, even if you do move here to study, the chances of being able to stay after your degree is complete are very slim. Getting married at that point could be your only way of staying here.

Unfortunately, companies can't just sponsor anyone to work here. You need to possess a high level of skills, and generally those who do are transferred by their current company to a position in the UK. A high level of education isn't enough, as you need a great deal of experience as well.

With all modesty - does it matter that I'm smart, entrepreneurial, adaptive to other cultures, etc. at all? Or is that useless without work sponsorship? I know the UK has plenty of well-qualified graduates.

No, they don't care at all. Even as a highly qualified person who is already in the UK legally, it's very difficult to find work right now, and recent graduates are having an impossible time finding work. I interviewed last year with someone who had applied to the NHS in England, and he said there were 15,000 applicants for 10 positions. This is very typical right now. Unfortunately, it also seems like companies are hiring UK graduates over foreigners currently. It's not true for every foreigner here, but even with a very high level of education and a great deal of work experience, I can't find work. It's gotten so bad that I told my husband to go ahead and take a job abroad, as his company has been pressuring him to move for the past year. There's no point in staying here if I can't find work and he's being offered a promotion elsewhere. I do have American friends that have found work here, but most aren't getting the same opportunities they would in the US. Not to say that would be true for you, but don't expect to move over and have a great deal of job opportunities, as unemployment is very high right now, and even entry level jobs that would typically be given to those with no experience are going to those that have experience.

If this is clearly the best option, but I cannot find something from the US, should I consider moving to London for the summer and trying to find work from there?

No, it's against immigration rules to enter the country as a visitor and look for work. There's no way you could enter the UK simply to look for work without a visa that allows you to work.

So, how can I best get into the UK on a legal, semi-permanent basis, considering this information? Is it doable, especially without getting sponsored for work? Any new ideas?

Marriage or study.

No, it's against immigration rules to enter the country as a visitor and look for work. There's no way you could enter the UK simply to look for work without a visa that allows you to work.
Marriage or study.

You can look for work, but you'd have to leave to apply for your visa in the US.

Even as a highly qualified person who is already in the UK legally, it's very difficult to find work right now, and recent graduates are having an impossible time finding work.

I can attest to this: I'm a UK citizen and I graduated with a masters in Theoretical Physics in 2005 and a research masters in Geophysics in 2008. I started looking for a graduate job in Science in August 2008 and I finally secured a job in October 2010!

Between August 2008 and October 2010 I had to settle for working in retail at just above minimum wage in order to make ends meet (and even then there were very few retail jobs available - I was lucky to have been employed just before the recession hit because I would have most likely been out of a job for the whole time otherwise).

There were just no positions available for recent graduates... at one point I searched through 500 science jobs online and couldn't find a single one I was qualified for - because no one wanted graduates, they all wanted people with a minimum of a PhD and/or 10 years of experience working in the field.

And that was just UK citizens applying for jobs... and we're supposed to get priority over foreign applicants, so if even the UK graduates can't find work, then what hope do foreign graduates have?

No, it's against immigration rules to enter the country as a visitor and look for work. There's no way you could enter the UK simply to look for work without a visa that allows you to work.

That's not true.

It's completely legal to look for work as a visitor and even interview for jobs as a visitor (a friend of mine visited the UK for a week for the sole purpose of attending job interviews).

However, it is illegal to start working while you are still a visitor - so if you come here to look for work/interview, you must return to the US to apply for the work visa before you can actually start working.

Another possibility, that I don't think has been mentioned here, is to get a job in the US with a multinational firm, and then get a transfer after a year or two.  Obviously there is no certainty that this would work out.  I'm thinking of top consulting firms etc, who fairly regularly do intracompany transfers.  I also wonder if some of these top firms would sponsor a high flying foreign graduate right from the beginning - I know that the US visa situation is completely different, but a couple of these companies have sponsored a couple of my non-US citizen friends for H1B work visas for the US.  I don't know if this is the kind of job you would want, but if business is what you're interested in then it would likely further your professional development.

It's completely legal to look for work as a visitor and even interview for jobs as a visitor (a friend of mine visited the UK for a week for the sole purpose of attending job interviews).

Thanks for the clarification. For some reason, I thought if they suspected you'd be searching for work when you're here, it was against the immigration rules and you could be bounced. I guess it's only if you intend to stay and work illegally.

So, coming here to check out the job market while you're on holiday would be perfectly fine, but you'll have to return to the US and be able to obtain a visa to actually work afterwards, which will be very hard.

Between August 2008 and October 2010 I had to settle for working in retail at just above minimum wage in order to make ends meet

It's a relief to hear I'm not the only one! I'm not in retail, but definitely in a job that isn't even as good as the job I worked during university. At this point, I could only dream of getting a job like the one I had in the US, and even with the exchange rate, one that pays nearly as much.


Another thought I have is, could you possibly find some type of internship? If you could find a company that can hire a non-UK citizen for an internship, that would give you an opportunity to live here for a while and find out if it's where you really want to be. Possibly by that time, you would be in a place to get married and stay here longer, or find another way of obtaining a visa to live and work here. I'm sure finding such an internship would be difficult, but unlike immigration, companies hiring you will be interested in someone who is "smart, entrepreneurial, adaptive to other cultures" and speaks several languages. I know a lot of people who went abroad to work after graduation, but most were living in Asia teaching English or doing similar jobs. I'm not sure what's out there in terms of jobs for non-EU graduates in the UK.

Thanks for the clarification. For some reason, I thought if they suspected you'd be searching for work when you're here, it was against the immigration rules and you could be bounced. I guess it's only if you intend to stay and work illegally.

So, coming here to check out the job market while you're on holiday would be perfectly fine, but you'll have to return to the US and be able to obtain a visa to actually work afterwards, which will be very hard.

There is a fine line, of course - if you're coming to visit the UK for a long period of time, you don't have much money or ties to the US... and you have your CV and information about job vacancies with you, then the immigration officer may believe you will try to work illegally while in the UK as a visitor.

It's up to you to provide evidence that you know the immigration rules, that you have a reason to return to the US and that you will not actually start working in the UK as a visitor.

In the case of my friend, she was only visiting for a week, she already had the job interviews set up in the UK, she had enough money for the trip and she also had a job and an apartment in the US to return to.

It wouldn't necessarily be very hard to secure a work visa after looking for work in the UK as a visitor though - if you can get a job offer and a willing sponsor while in the UK, then it should be relatively straightforward.

The idea would be: look for work and interview in the UK, hopefully secure a job offer and sponsorship and then return to the US to apply for the visa, before coming back to start working.

It's a relief to hear I'm not the only one! I'm not in retail, but definitely in a job that isn't even as good as the job I worked during university. At this point, I could only dream of getting a job like the one I had in the US, and even with the exchange rate, one that pays nearly as much.

Yes, it wasn't fun. When I was in high school, my physics teacher told me that as a woman with a physics degree, I would have no problem getting a job... but fast-forward 7 years and there were hardly any jobs around at all.

I'm so glad I finally found a good job though... I now work for the government (feeling like I'm actually contributing to something important) and I'm earning more than double what I earned in retail .

Another thought I have is, could you possibly find some type of internship? If you could find a company that can hire a non-UK citizen for an internship, that would give you an opportunity to live here for a while and find out if it's where you really want to be. Possibly by that time, you would be in a place to get married and stay here longer, or find another way of obtaining a visa to live and work here. I'm sure finding such an internship would be difficult, but unlike immigration, companies hiring you will be interested in someone who is "smart, entrepreneurial, adaptive to other cultures" and speaks several languages. I know a lot of people who went abroad to work after graduation, but most were living in Asia teaching English or doing similar jobs. I'm not sure what's out there in terms of jobs for non-EU graduates in the UK.

As a recent graduate, the OP could probably qualify for the BUNAC Intern in Britain programme, where they can come to the UK to do an internship (either paid or unpaid) for up to 6 months. However, the internship must be secured before they leave the US (as they need the Tier 5 sponsorship paperwork for the visa), there is a minimum amount of funds required for the visa and they can only stay in the UK for a maximum of 6 months.

BUNAC Intern in Britain: http://www.bunac.org/usa/interninbritain/

Thank you all for your responses. So I could marry, become a student and face a very questionable job market/perhaps even have a job and not be able to stay, get an internship with no guarantees, or get a consulting-type job that may let me transfer later.

With none of these being very appealing to me personally, I've got to be realistic and accept the impracticality of moving to the UK. Maybe in the future, once we're out of the recession! As one of you said, immigration rules can change quickly, and I imagine they'll get looser as the world globalizes. You guys gave me exactly what I was looking for, being practical answers for a tough question with many if/and/buts. Thank you again!

All the best, RS

Maybe in the future, once we're out of the recession! As one of you said, immigration rules can change quickly, and I imagine they'll get looser as the world globalizes.

Acutally, the rules are only getting tougher and stricter (and more expensive) as time goes on. It seems as though the more the world globalises, the more they are tightening the border controls and making it more difficult to move here.

The UK is small and overcrowded and with the expansion of the EU there are a lot more EU citizens living here now than the government originally anticipated... and since they can't stop people moving here from other EU countries, the only way they see to reduce immigration is to restrict the number of people moving here from outside the EU.

- A couple of years ago with just a bachelors degree you probably would have been able to qualify for a Tier 1 Highly Skilled visa, where as long as you met the points criteria, you could have moved over to the UK without first having a job. However, they got rid of this visa last year and now you have to get a job first before you can move.

- Also last year, they made it even more difficult to get a work visa and have restricted the number of work visas that can be issued each year to about 20,000. They have also tightened the criteria for qualifying for a company transfer visa (higher minimum salary, length of time worked for the company etc.).

- Currently if you study for a degree in the UK, there is a Tier 1 Post Study Work visa that will allow you to stay in the UK and work for 2 more years, without needing sponsorship for a Tier 2 work visa... however, they are getting rid of this visa in April 2012 and graduates will need to get sponsorship for a Tier 2 work visa to stay.

- Currently people on work visas can qualify for permanent residence after 5 years in the UK and citizenship a year later. From April 2012, they are proposing not to allow people on work visas to gain permanent residence or citizenship and they will have to return to their home country eventually.

Getting rid of the post-study visa? Wow, that is good to know, thank you for that information.

The logic behind restricting non-EU visas makes sense as you described, it's just a pity that I missed a more golden age by only a few years! The recession cannot have helped either.

For the sake of an armchair debate, I am curious if this will become an issue for the UK and other western European countries - what are they gaining when relatively unscreened immigration from the rest of the EU is costing them potential higher-quality foreign immigrants? All the benefits of EU membership, of course, but alone it can't be very helpful to them. Or perhaps these immigrants or more qualified than I'm now imagining? I wonder, as the EU expands eastwards, whether the free intra-EU movement policies will hold. I'm admittedly uninformed, thoughts?

RS

It already doesn't hold completely.  New memver states often have to wait a few years before gaining the right to work in the UK without special permission.

Another possibility could be for you and your girlfriend to get working holiday visas for a third country, such as Australia.  There are also some programs for US citizens to work as assistant language teachers in France and Spain, although I think the deadlines for next year might have passed already.  It might be worth checking out, and good luck!

Getting rid of the post-study visa? Wow, that is good to know, thank you for that information.

The logic behind restricting non-EU visas makes sense as you described, it's just a pity that I missed a more golden age by only a few years! The recession cannot have helped either.

For the sake of an armchair debate, I am curious if this will become an issue for the UK and other western European countries - what are they gaining when relatively unscreened immigration from the rest of the EU is costing them potential higher-quality foreign immigrants? All the benefits of EU membership, of course, but alone it can't be very helpful to them. Or perhaps these immigrants or more qualified than I'm now imagining? I wonder, as the EU expands eastwards, whether the free intra-EU movement policies will hold. I'm admittedly uninformed, thoughts?

RS

It's very good for the UK. The EU is not a one way street that only other countries benefit from the UK. The Spanish have to put up with retired Britons, Swedes, etc buying land and houses meanwhile their neighbors to the South have a difficult time in visiting or getting work permits in Spain. The UK benefited because employers could recruit low-skilled workers from the Eastern bloc to perform jobs that Britons won't do. As bookgrl said, new member states have to wait even with EU membership. Bulgaria joined in 2007 I believe but the UK and France for example, won't drop work restrictions until 2014.