How to immigrate to United Kingdom. Working Visa. Global Talent Visa.

6 min readNov 6, 2023

Guidance and Recommendations for Relocating to the United Kingdom. Steps and instructions how to get a permament residency, right to work and citizenship in UK for IT guys.

What is this article about?

This article is a guide on how to get legal right to live and work in UK. I’ll mainly focused what/how you have to do in order to get residence permit (and later citizenship) in United Kingdom of Great Britain

Path 1: Join Skilled Worker Visa Legion.

Most popular and most realistic visa to get. Skilled worker tier 2 visa replaced Working Visa in 2019. Since that time some requirements have been suspended and gave companies way more freedom to invite foreign specialists.

How to get this visa

The main requirement — you need to find a company that will sponsor you. So the only thing you need to do — pass an interview (commonly about 3–4 interviews). Once the company (sponsor) approves you — soon you will need to pass an English exam (IELTS with B1 level including speaking). And finally pay for documents, NHS fee — in a couple of months your visa will be ready. Roughly for 3 years you need about 2k-3k pounds but almost every company will compensate for it by your arrival.

How to find a job and sponsor. Rich LinkedIn Profile.

Before I recommend you became confident in your profession. It might be development, testing, analitics, web design etc. Became at least middle developer (about 4–5 years). Prefereably with Diploma but in some companies it’s not required, especially if you proved that you are skilled during interview.

Became middle developer
Make good LinkedIn profile page with at least 1.5k connections
Have Diploma
Have a good English level. You to speak and write good english, preferably without accent.

Once it’s done — start adding IT HR connections from UK. Try to get at least 500, better 1000. But don’t rush or you might be banned in Linkedin.

Next step — Wait.

Once you have completed previous steps you need just to wait until some HR offers you a pass an interview. But before interview ask do they offer sponsorship or not. If not — don’t waste their and your time. No sponsorship — no visa.

Sooner or later you will pass the interview and come to the UK. But next things you have to know:

Working visa requires a sponsor, so most likely you won’t change your sponsor. So you shouldn’t expect a big pay rise. Possibly you can change sponsors but it might be risky. If you lose your sponsor you have only 60 days and after that you have to leave the UK and start over.
Don’t expect to have any bonus even if it was promised. Quite often it’s false promises. Especially if you are hired through an agency. Agency will lie to you, they need to hire you at all costs.

Path 2: Global Talent Visa.

Long path but leads to the one of the most valuable visa — Global Talent Visa (before 2019 was known as Exceptional talent visa).

This visa is much more difficult to get. But trust me — it’s worth it. Personally I think “Global talent or Exceptional Talent” is a misleading name. I would name it “Person with experience and achievements” I don’t mean that person should be extraordinary.

What you have to do to get it.

You need to make a portfolio with proofs that confirm that you:

1. You share your expertize and get positive feedback from community on practice it means:

You publish articles in known IT platform (eg Dzone)
You conduct private or public courses about IT. It might be as university or even private company
Write books (This one I think might take too much time)
Participate in known conferences

2. Your salary has to be higher than average on the market for your area. This is pretty obvious. If you are highly qualified specialist you has to earn more.

3. You should get at least 3 endorsments from 3 persons with position at least team lead but better if it’s CTO or CEO or related. It’s better that all 3 persons are “recognized” — have good linkedin profile.

4. Show experience from projects beyond your main job, whether paid or volunteer, with endorsements to prove your achievements.

Each portfolio is considered on a case by case basis. Portfolio is reviewed by IT specialist so you have to understand that there is no chance to mislead him.

Advantages of Global Talent Visa

Global talent visa is Tier 1. Allows you to work without a sponsor, it allows you to open a company and work as a contractor. It also provides the option to reside without active employment and avoid deportation

Global Talent Visa have 2 types: Global Talent and Global Promise.

They are very similar, the only difference — with a promise you can get indefinite leave to remain in 5 years and with Talent in 3 years. In general it’s easier to get Promise type. Often seniors devs apply for Talent and middle and even juniors — for Promise.

Win strategy if you are disciplined enough.

If you are just a junior or middle developer and you are willing to relocate to the UK and settle here — read the criterions that I mentioned above and work towards meeting them. It might take 2–3 years but the more you invest the higher chances to get it. Apply for Promise. Promise visa almost the same as Talent.

Instead of conclusion. Review Salaries For Seniors.

It’s hard for me what the compensation is for the middle level. I came to the UK as a senior guy so here I publish what you might expect if you have at least 8–10 years of experience of Java development (sometime even less like 6 or so).

First review Tier 2 Visa. In that case you can’t expect to get a really high salary. Companies understand that they offer you a chance to live and stay in the UK. So the first 5 years don’t expect too much (but I know exceptions).

Salary at the beginning: 60–80k per month or about 4000 pounds after tax
Salary after 3 years of work (roughly): 80–90k or about 5000 pounds after tax
Salary after 5+ years once you get a passport 100k+ — about 5500 pounds per month.

There are positions like hedge funds or companies like MAANG that might be much higher like 150–300k but it’s difficult to get so I don’t even include it here.

I wish you good luck. Don’t think that it’s something impossible.

My journey was slighly different. I initially came to London on a Tier 2 working visa in 2019. While working, I dedicated time to build my portfolio for the Global Talent Visa. After two years, I applied and successfully obtained the Talent Visa. The effort I invested was worthwhile. I strongly recommend (I think it has to be mandatory) to work in Western countries and learn local IT traditions.