Sector

Education Immigration Services

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES ACHIEVED

Our specialist immigration team provides advice and assistance to education institutions in relation to all aspects of immigration law. We work with you to understand your needs and assist with navigating through the complex immigration laws, ensuring that you are in compliance with them.

We have expert knowledge and experience of the UK Visas and Immigration system and work with organisations who employ foreign nationals from all over the world. We assist and advise on the student visa route, the new graduate route and those looking to invest or start up a business in the UK.

We advise on all elements of the sponsored visa process, from the initial sponsor licence application for the employer through to providing a full service on obtaining a work visa for the new employee.

We support with student visas and visas under the investor and innovator routes, amongst others. Additionally, we assist education institution with compliance, illegal working prevention and Home Office audits.

Services:

Skilled sponsor licence

Education institutions seeking to fill vacancies may look to sponsor migrant workers. We can assist your organisation to apply for a sponsor licence to enable you to hire foreign nationals.

We offer a full service, or we can provide a review of documents service. As part of this support, we can also carry out a pre-licence audit so that you are aware of the compliance duties required from a sponsor.

We can provide a full service offering to assist any of your new hires, whether inside or outside of the UK, and current employees extending their visas with the whole visa application process under the Skilled Worker route. We provide an end-to-end service and can liaise with your employees directly to ensure a smooth process. Alternatively, we can offer an ad hoc review service to assess key documents prior to the visa application submission.

Being a sponsor carries a high level of responsibility - we can provide training and advice on the compliance requirements to ensure that you maintain your A-rating licence.

Student sponsors

We assist education providers in applying for and renewing a licence to sponsor international students to come to the UK under the Student or Child Student route. We advise on eligibility, compliance and sponsor licence duties, along with providing full support through the application process.

For education providers who hold a licence, we assist and advise on sponsoring students under the Student route, and Temporary Students under the Short-term student route for certain courses.

Audits

We offer a fixed costs audit to ensure that your organisation is complying with its sponsor duties as a skilled worker and/or a student sponsor. This includes reviewing your systems, processes and documentation. We also speak with key personnel to ensure that they are aware of the Home Office duties and requirements. This is particularly helpful should the Home Office notify you, or turn up unannounced (as they are permitted to do), that they are attending your premises to carry out an official audit.

Training for ongoing compliance issues

We can provide training for sponsors on a range of compliance issues, including completing right to work checks, navigating the Sponsor Management System and advising on the documents that are required on file for each employee and/or students. If you have any specific training requests, we can accommodate these and provide a bespoke session for you.

Policies, procedures and HR processes

There are certain policies and procedures that an employer needs to follow when hiring foreign nationals. These include right to work check policies and the monitoring of visa expiry dates. We can review your current policies and advise on their effectiveness, or alternatively we can work with you to produce new documentation.

For further information please contact - Amy Stokes (Partner & Head of Business Immigration).