The UK has created a ‘Global Talent Taskforce’ with the purpose of attracting the world’s finest talent to the country. The Global Talent Taskforce’s primary purpose will be to attract top talent for the UK’s priority industries.
To meet the objectives of the Global Talent Taskforce and for greater mobility of high-skilled professionals, the UK would be making use of its Global Talent Visa. You do not need a job offer to get the Global Talent visa.
With a Global Talent visa, you can work in the UK if you have an endorsement as a leader or potential leader in digital technology, for example, in financial technology, gaming, cybersecurity, or artificial intelligence.
You can apply for a Global Talent visa to work in the UK if you’re a leader or potential leader in any one of the fields like academia or research, arts and culture or digital technology.
With a Global Talent visa you can work in the UK if you have an endorsement as a leader or potential leader in digital technology, for example in financial technology, gaming, cyber security or artificial intelligence.
With a Global Talent visa you can:
Choose how long your visa is for, up to 5 years
Be an employee, self-employed and a director of a company
Change or stop doing your job without telling the Home Office
Bring your partner and children with you as your ‘dependants’, if they’re eligible
Travel abroad and return to the UK
There are no language or minimum salary eligibility requirements.
If you want to stay longer in the UK, you can renew your visa as many times as you like – you’ll have to meet the eligibility criteria for extending your stay.
You can also apply to settle permanently in the UK also known as ‘indefinite leave to remain’ after 3 years if you’re applying as a leader and 5 years if you’re applying as a potential leader.
Eligibility of UK Global Talent visa
You do not need a job offer to get a visa. Your background can be either technical, for example, you’re a developer, engineer, or data scientist, or business, for example, you have commercial, investment, or digital product expertise in a technology company that creates software, hardware, or processes data.
Technical skills for UK Global Talent visa
Some of the technical skills you need to have include Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning experts (AI, NLP, ML), CTO or VP engineering experience managing teams of in-house employees at a growing digital business, Cybersecurity experts, DevOps / SysOps engineers, Experienced data scientists/data engineers, Experienced front-end developers, Experienced Mobile App developers, Experienced UX/UI designers, Experienced video game developers amongst others.
The following specialisms are not considered suitable:
Corporate roles or experience in managing large corporate teams
Junior investors/analysts.
Service Delivery, Process Delivery, Outsourcing, Consultancy (technical or management), ERP Consultancy, Systems Admin, and all related fields
Business skills apply to in-house work within product-led digital technology companies, not tech-enabled or service companies such as agencies, outsourcers, marketing firms, and so on.
How to apply for UK Global Talent visa
To get a Global Talent visa you usually need to apply for an endorsement to prove that you’re a leader or potential leader, as well as for the visa itself. You do not need to apply for an endorsement if you’ve won an eligible prize. You can apply for the visa straight away.