Could any Sri Lankans who moved to the UK recently contact me, please?

Hello, I'm a Brit living in France, I have a Sri Lankan friend presently working in South Korea who wants to move to the UK. If anyone can offer advice, etc, for him on what he needs to do re getting a visa, please could you contact me, and I'll give you his contact details. I don't know how the visa process would work for him, I'm assuming he would need a job offer from a UK employer to obtain any kind of UK residence visa? Any info would be very much appreciated, thank you.

Hi Mr Hobbit and welcome to the Forum.

It's not easy for a non EU/EEA citizen to enter the UK to live and work.  A citizen of Sri Lanka does need a visa to live and work in the UK; further, he/she will have to find an employer who will offer them work in a skill that is deemed as being in shortage in the UK.  This link will take you to the Government website that lists the jobs for which there is a shortage; further, that job must pay your friend more than £18,600 p/annum (it goes up if he/she wishes to bring their family as well).

Once they have that job offer, then the future employer must sponsor the application.  Full details of UK Immigration requirements can be found by following this link.

Once your friend has got all that, I'd recommend they read the Handy Tools section at the top of this page, there are many expat guides that will help them plan the journey.

Hope this helps.

Hi, it's Miss Hobbit, actually  :D but thanks very much for this info....

HOBBIT13 wrote:

Hi, it's Miss Hobbit, actually  :D but thanks very much for this info....


LOL - jeez ...... and I tried so hard to take the "sex" out of my response; anyway, best of luck to your friend. :)

Cynic
Expat Team

I think the £18,600 is for a spouse who intends to import a non-Eu spuse. Its the UK spouse that has to earn £18,600.

he is single!

If single the £18,600 is irrelevant

Hi all,

There are also salary bands for individuals applying for a job in the UK on the shortage list (so Tier 2 visa); I just checked it, it's actually much higher than £18,600; you can access the list from this link.

thanks very much cynic

The £18,600 is for a spouse who wishes to bring in a non EU partner.

The tier 2 visa requires an income of over £30,000.