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on August 28, 2024
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Aimed at leaders or potential leaders in the fields of academia or research, arts and culture, and digital technology, the UK Global Talent visa continues to attract a lot of interest from ambitious people across the globe. Nor should it be greatly surprising that so many accomplished and capable individuals are drawn to the notion of applying for this visa.
This is, after all, not “just another” work visa for the UK. It offers greater flexibility than other popular UK immigration options, with there being no need for the applicant to have a job offer or sponsorship from an employer, and there being no restrictions on the type of work the visa holder can undertake in their field.
If a holder of the Global Talent visa meets the relevant criteria as a talented individual, they may even be able to settle in the UK after three years. Those who are on this visa route having been regarded as a promising talent, may be eligible after five years. Such settlement, in turn, can put the foreign national on a pathway to eventual British citizenship.
Such factors as the above might have greatly inspired your own decision to target the Global Talent visa over alternative routes to moving to the UK for work, such as the Skilled Worker visa.
However, you might also be slightly intimidated by what may appear a convoluted application process for this visa. Indeed, before you can even apply for the visa at all, you will need to have received a “prestigious prize” for work in your field, or secured what is known as an “endorsement”, signifying your capabilities as a leader or potential leader.
Then, once you are in a position of being allowed to apply for the visa itself, you will need to adhere to various eligibility and documentation requirements. Those requirements will include being at least 18 years old, and providing such crucial documents as your passport (or another document that shows your identity and nationality) and your tuberculosis test results, if the country that you’re from necessitates taking this test.
With such a breadth and depth of criteria to fulfil, you could easily find that your Global Talent visa application is refused, perhaps due to a simple mistake or your application not being as strong in some areas as it needed to be.
Below, then, we have taken a closer look at some of the most frequent reasons for difficulties with obtaining a Global Talent visa, and how you might look to avoid the same issues.
Yes, it is definitely possible for a Global Talent visa application to be rejected or refused.
The Home Office does not publish official data on the approval rate of Global Talent visa applications. However, even in the case of UK visa routes with high application success rates, it is of the utmost importance for applicants to prepare thoroughly, and to make sure their application fully complies with what the Home Office will be seeking.
The likelihood of your Global Talent visa application being rejected or refused will depend on your individual circumstances, as well as how strong your qualifications and evidence are.
In order to succeed with your application for the endorsement (if required) and then the visa, you will need to show exceptional credentials in your field. A strong portfolio, endorsements, awards, publications, and/or recognition from respected organisations will help to show you are a proven leader or have great potential to become a leader.
Even before you start putting together your Global Talent visa application in earnest, you should be taking the time to ensure you thoroughly understand the requirements. This is also the stage at which to begin gathering compelling evidence, and to seek out advice and guidance from Endorsing Bodies and experts in UK immigration law, such as our award-winning professionals at Cranbrook Legal. You can begin that conversation by calling us on 0208 215 0053, or by completing and submitting our online form to request a free consultation.
While the below is not necessarily an exhaustive rundown of the factors that might cause an endorsement or Global Talent visa application to be rejected or refused, they are nonetheless among the biggest causes of issues among those seeking this visa:
When you are seeking a Global Talent visa, it is imperative that you put forward a convincing case to have your application approved. Your application will need to be clear, consistent, and coherent. This will need to include putting your qualifications and achievements as an applicant in the context of the specific eligibility and documentation requirements for this visa route.
Certainly, the evidence and documentation that you provide with your application will need to adequately convey your exceptional credentials in your field. Yes, you might have a good online footprint as a professional, but you should never depend on the reviewer of your application already knowing who you are or having to find out about you by themselves.
This is why, when you are putting together your application, you should prioritise being as clear and as detailed as possible across all your documents. You should act as if there isn’t any information about you online, and tell a chronological, inspiring, and detailed story, outlining your suitability as a candidate for the endorsement and Global Talent visa.
Whichever Global Talent visa pathway you take, you will need to supply recommendation letters to validate your skills, impacts, and achievements as a professional seeking this visa.
Well-written recommendation letters, written by individuals who know you, have worked with you, and are renowned in your industry, will be vital to demonstrating that you have a track record of showing exceptional ability. When you get your recommendation letters right, they will greatly help to convince an Endorsing Body of your suitability for endorsement.
However, there are still too many candidates for a Global Talent visa endorsement who do not get this part of their application right. They might mistakenly believe, for example, that simply anyone who works in their field would be a suitable person to provide a recommendation letter. In truth, you should be seeking out recommendation letters from people who are highly accomplished and who have excellent or extraordinary track records.
Furthermore, it isn’t only your choice of recommender that will need to be strong – the content they say about you will need to be strong, too. The recommendation letters that you provide must be unique, instead of all essentially containing the same information.
If your recommenders are all people who can talk about why you are exceptionally talented, as well as the specific work that you have done and details of the impact of your work, this will help put you in the strongest possible position with your endorsement application.
As an applicant for a Global Talent visa endorsement, you can expect to be able to provide up to 10 pieces of evidence in relation to the relevant eligibility criteria. The amount of evidence for some criteria will depend on the specific visa endorsement subcategory.
Not every successful candidate for endorsement necessarily submits as many as 10 pieces of evidence. They might submit only six particularly strong pieces of evidence, and still get endorsed. Conversely, you are unlikely to achieve endorsement for this visa if you include 10 weak pieces of evidence with your application.
You may be concerned that you don’t have adequate evidence right now to give you a strong likelihood of achieving endorsement. If this describes your situation, you may ultimately decide to wait until you have made greater impact through your work, before you eventually make another attempt to obtain the endorsement and the Global Talent visa.
Yes, you might possess a wide range of skills. However, in attempting to convey this, you may end up with an application that seems shallow and unspecific.
Instead, it is imperative to focus on your core area of expertise when you are trying to obtain the endorsement and Global Talent visa. You will need to provide an exact answer to the question of what makes you an exceptional talent in this core area. This will necessitate providing proof of your skills in terms of your skill sets, impacts, and results as a professional.
The question of how long applicants for the Global Talent visa can expect to need to wait for a decision is slightly more complicated to answer than is the case for some other UK visa categories. After all, you may need to allow a certain amount of time for an endorsement application to be prepared, submitted, and approved, before you can even apply for the visa.
If you are worried about how long you may need to wait for an endorsement, it can be a good idea to check the current situation with whatever Endorsing Body you have in mind. It has been known in some cases for a decision to be made on a prospective migrant’s endorsement application within one day. In other cases, however, the wait could be as long as eight weeks from the date a completed endorsement application is submitted.
As for the application to the Home Office for the actual visa, the department advises that once someone has applied online, proved their identity, and supplied their documents, they can typically expect a decision within three weeks if they’re outside the UK, or eight weeks if they’re inside the UK.
It may be possible for candidates for this visa to pay to get a faster decision on their application. Using the Home Office’s “priority service” means the applicant can normally expect to get a decision within five working days. A “super priority service” also exists, and usually enables the applicant to get a decision by the end of the next working day.
With the Global Talent visa being such a desirable visa that could make a big difference to your life and career in the event of a successful application, it makes sense to take every possible step to maximise your chances of approval. One such powerful step could be to reach out to our own specialists in UK immigration law at Cranbrook Legal.
We have an excellent success rate in our project management of clients’ applications for endorsement and the subsequent Global Talent visa. Our initial free assessment of your case can be followed – if you decide to proceed – by a comprehensive fixed-fee service, with this fee only needing to be paid to us if you are granted the visa by the Home Office.
To find out more about seeking and obtaining a UK Global Talent visa with our help, please fill in and submit our online contact form today to arrange a free consultation. Alternatively, simply give our central London-based experts a call, on 0208 215 0053.
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