Global Talent Visa

What jobs qualify for a Global Talent visa under the digital technology criteria?

By Amer Zaman

on January 16, 2025

Read Time: 8 Minutes

For individuals who are leaders in their field, or who have the potential to be leaders, the Global Talent visa is arguably one of the most exciting routes to moving to, and working in, the UK.

Accomplished foreign nationals in both the established and early stages of their careers may have plenty of reason to take an interest in the Global Talent visa. After all, this category presents attractive conditions and opportunities, even compared to other UK visa options:

  • It is not necessary to have a job offer or sponsorship from an employer, in order to obtain this visa.
  • Nor are restrictions imposed on the type of work that Global Talent visa holders are permitted to do in their field.
  • Depending on the visa holder’s circumstances, they might be eligible to settle in the UK in as little as three years.

There are number of broad fields in which it is possible to get approved for a Global Talent visa for the UK. These include:

  • Academia or research
  • Arts and culture
  • Digital technology

In this article, we will focus mainly on obtaining a Global Talent visa to work in the UK as a leader or potential leader in digital technology – specifically, the jobs that qualify under this subcategory. This route is often referred to as the “Digital Technology Global Talent visa”.

Who is eligible for a UK Global Talent visa?

To get approved for a Global Talent visa for the UK, the applicant must be 18 years of age or older. In most cases, they will also need to complete both of these stages:

  • Successfully apply for an endorsement to prove that they are a leader or a potential leader. For digital technology applicants, this currently means securing an endorsement from Tech Nation.
  • Apply to the UK Home Office for the Global Talent visa itself. The application must be submitted online, and the candidate for the visa will need to prove their identity and provide their documents.

Once the application for the visa has been submitted, the candidate can expect to receive a decision from the Home Office within around three weeks if they’re outside the UK, or within about eight weeks if they are already in the UK. The given foreign national won’t need to seek an endorsement if they have won an eligible award. If this is the case, they can proceed immediately to applying for the actual visa.

An introduction to the Digital Technology Global Talent visa

If you are eager to unlock a broad wealth of professional opportunities in the UK’s rapidly evolving and stimulating digital technology sector, this could be an excellent subcategory of the Global Talent visa to pursue.

As a holder of this visa, you will be entitled to work in such fields as:

  • Financial technology (“fintech”)
  • Gaming
  • Cybersecurity
  • Artificial intelligence

Digital Technology Global Talent visa holders are permitted to do the following during their time living and working in the UK:

  • Serve as an employee or a company director, or work on a self-employed basis
  • Change or stop doing their job without letting the Home Office know
  • Bring their partner and children to the UK as their “dependants”, provided that they satisfy the relevant eligibility criteria
  • Travel abroad and come back to the UK

Flexibility is one of the major advantages of the Digital Technology Global Talent visa. Applicants can choose how long their visa lasts – up to a maximum of five years – and if they wish to stay in the UK for longer, they can renew their visa as many times as they like. If they choose to extend their visa, they will – of course – need to meet the specific eligibility criteria for this.

There aren’t any language eligibility requirements for this visa, and nor is there any need to have a certain minimum salary.

As a holder of the Global Talent visa in the digital technology field, you will also have the option of applying for “indefinite leave to remain” status – otherwise known as settling permanently in the UK – after:

  • Three years if you applied as a leader
  • Five years if you applied as a potential leader

If you are successful in getting approved for the Digital Technology Global Talent visa, the UK Home Office will provide you with a full list of the things you can and cannot do with this visa.

The skills that could qualify you for a Digital Technology Global Talent visa

As aforementioned, it isn’t necessary to have a job offer in order to get this visa. Candidates can be from either of the following backgrounds:

  • Technical – for example, as a developer, engineer, or data scientist
  • Business – for example, possessing commercial, investment, or digital product expertise in a technology company that creates software or hardware

In determining whether to endorse candidates for this Global Talent visa sub-route, Tech Nation takes into account their business or technical skills against certain criteria.

Below is a list of suitable skill types published by UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI), as it stood at the time of writing. It is important to bear in mind that this is not an exhaustive rundown; nonetheless, it provides an indication of the typical applicants that Tech Nation assesses.

Suitable technical skills for this visa subcategory include:

  • Artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning (ML) expertise  
  • CTO or VP engineering experience managing teams of in-house staff at a growing digital business
  • Cybersecurity expertise
  • DevOps/SysOps engineering
  • Back-end development experience, including leading the development of or making a heavy contribution to major new technologies or open-source projects
  • Data science and data engineering experience
  • Front-end development experience
  • Mobile app development experience
  • UX/UI design experience
  • Videogame development experience
  • Hardware engineering
  • Operating systems engineering
  • Principal software engineering and development
  • Virtual and augmented reality development

Meanwhile, the following are examples of suitable business skills for this visa sub-route:

  • Experience in a digital business as a commercial/business lead (P&L, growth, sales and distribution strategy)
  • Experience as C Suite in an SME + (CEO, CMO, CIO) or head of operations for a digital business
  • Senior VC or PE analysis experience, with a track record of leading investments in digital businesses
  • Experience of growing or expanding a significant product-led digital technology business
  • Experience of leading substantial VC investment over £25 million GDP
  • Product management experience
  • Performance marketing expertise, used in-house for digital businesses
  • SaaS or enterprise sales leadership for digital services
  • Sector-specific experience, such as payment infrastructure in fintech, or international expansion in educational technology (“edtech”)
  • Solution sales expertise
  • Solution sales skills performed for a growing B2B digital business (in other words, not “big company” experience)

Are any skills not considered suitable for a Digital Technology Global Talent visa?

Yes, there are certain skill types that Tech Nation does not consider suitable when it is assessing the technical and business skills of applicants for endorsement.

These include the following specialisms:

  • Corporate roles or experience of managing large corporate teams
  • Junior investors/analysts. When such candidates seek endorsements, it is necessary for these specialisms to be supported by an investment track record made at senior level. These specialisms are not suitable for the Exceptional Promise category (the one that recognises people who have the potential to be future leaders in their field)
  • Service delivery, process delivery, outsourcing, consultancy (technical or management), ERP consultancy, systems admin, and all related fields

For the purposes of Tech Nation’s endorsement assessment, business skills apply to in-house work within product-led digital technology companies, rather than to tech-enabled or service companies such as agencies, outsourcers, or marketing firms.

What are the disadvantages of the Global Talent visa?

The flexible and powerful nature of the Global Talent visa – including in relation to how long the visa holder is entitled to stay in the UK, as well as the lack of restrictions on salary or any need to have a job offer beforehand – means this route does not present many disadvantages.

There are, however, still some potential drawbacks with this visa route, depending on the given candidate’s circumstances, requirements, and perspective.

Those disadvantages include:

  • A time-consuming and difficult endorsement and application process

Unless the given foreign national who seeks a Global Talent visa has won an eligible award, they will need to complete both the endorsement and visa application stages.

Fulfilling these requirements can take considerable time and effort, even when the candidate has experts in UK immigration law by their side to advise and assist them through the process.

It has been noted that Tech Nation, for example, publishes some 7,500 words of guidance for endorsement applicants. Furthermore, much of this guidance has been criticised in some quarters as not being very transparent or easy to understand.

  • Costs that are burdensome or off-putting for many applicants

The perceived exorbitant cost of applying for a Global Talent visa has been another point of criticism. At the time of writing, it costs £716 to apply for this visa, and for each partner or child included in the application, a further £716 needs to be paid.

This does not take account of the healthcare surcharge, which must also be paid as part of a Global Talent visa application. This is typically £1,035 per year for each person applying.

As you can imagine, these costs can rapidly accumulate. A Global Talent visa applicant who intends to bring their partner and one child with them to the UK for five years, for example, can expect to need to pay £2,148 for the visa applications alone, to say nothing of the eyewatering healthcare surcharge costs.

In a world in which nations compete the finest talents, the need for such expenditure is understandably a disincentive for many prospective Global Talent visa applicants, even for those candidates who would have no difficulty in footing the bill.

Achieve a positive outcome from your Global Talent visa application with our help

Whatever your particular circumstances and needs might be as a potential candidate for this sought-after visa, when you join forces with Cranbrook Legal’s knowledgeable and experienced specialists, you can be sure of maximising your likelihood of success.

Indeed, this is shown by our impressive track record of helping foreign nationals from a broad range of backgrounds to secure this visa. We are particularly well-known for the help we have long given to leaders and potential leaders seeking to build up technology-based businesses in the UK.

To learn more about our comprehensive project-managed service, please call 0208 215 0053 now, or complete and submit our online form to book a free consultation.

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