Hello,
I know many here are interested in emigrating. By chance, I came across some document pertaining to the sponsorship system in the UK, and thought that I would share it here for those who are interested.
It is a bit complicated and confusing (although there is much, much worse, regarding official paperwork!).
To start,
I will concentrate on the Tier 2 sponsorships, which I think is the most common and the one that would apply to most candidates. There also a student sponsorship (with limited work hour allowance), you will have to do your own research if you are interested in that.
Then there are those who earn more than £150,000, and those who apply for Tier 1 sponsorship, which are very highly skilled applicant. They are free from some of the restrictions.
To give you an idea, the number of
monthly sponsorship allowance for Tier 2 would be around 2000 for the whole country. So that is not very much, but read on, it is actually not so bad.
To provide a sponsorship, a company must have a licence to sponsor (which costs like £1000 in fees) and then apply for a certificate of sponsorship for a particular person (which also costs like £1000). The success of that certificate is based on a points system to assess how valuable and skilled the candidate is. Education, experience, etc. play a big role, of course.
So the company has to be somehow well off and seriously want you.
For many professions, the company must also prove that it tried to find a candidate on the local job market first (post an ad for 4 weeks). But, if your profession is in the
Shortage Occupation List then that step can be skipped.
The Shortage Occupation List and the Sponsorship Licensee List are both available online. So if you are in one of the shortage occupation list, and apply to one of the companies on the licensee list, you should have made a big step in maximizing your chances. It is my impression that the rest is mostly a matter of scoring many points.
These two lists are available online:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/486107/Shortage_Occupation_List_-_November_2015.pdf
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/547859/2016-08-24_Tier_25_Register_of_Sponsors.pdf
(I am not 100% sure they are the latest version)
I also found explanations of the process on this page:
http://www.ukvisas.co.uk/employers
One last note: Employing illegal workers can get employers prison time (2 years) so it might be a bad idea. With that in mind,
if someone employs you illegally, they are very likely to exploit you as much as possible and make sure that you have no life outside that. They're not going to risk prison time for nothing.
Hopefully this information can be useful.