Helping ensure you stay compliant with UK immigration laws and providing practical support, when you employ non-settled workers

  • Making sure you comply with immigration laws when you employ non-settled workers can be complicated and time consuming.
  • Non-settled workers now includes people from the EU now that there is no longer the free movement of people following the UK’s exit from the European Union.
  • It is essential to have up to date knowledge of the laws and the systems required to maintain compliance.
  • We can provide tailored support which saves you time and ensures you are legally compliant. We can also help with business immigration services.

What is immigration employment law?

Immigration employment law includes the legal requirements and regulations that apply to employers who are employing foreign workers in the UK. This includes issues such as sponsorship, visas, and compliance with immigration rules. Employers need to be aware of these requirements in order to ensure that they are employing foreign workers in a lawful and compliant manner.

For HR professionals and business owners, keeping up with how the UK’s constantly changing immigration laws affect your current and potential non-settled workers is demanding and time-consuming.

Whether you are recruiting a few key people from abroad or have major plans that involve moving large numbers of staff to the UK, it helps to have practical, up to date advice, on areas such as TUPE (Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations), sponsor licensing and avoiding illegal working.

This up to date knowledge is vital. If you are unaware of the latest rules, you could inadvertently fail to comply, with the potential for substantial fines and possibly losing your sponsor licence. Constantly ensuring compliance can be onerous, especially when you are already busy running your business.

Sponsor licensing

If you wish to sponsor workers in the UK, you will need to register with UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI). UKVI will assess your HR systems and make illegal working checks to confirm whether you meet the requirements and whether they can approve your application. We will help you apply to join the Register of Sponsors, which includes advice about the documentation needed, drafting of the application itself and checking the systems to be implemented.

Sponsoring skilled workers

The rules for sponsoring skilled workers are complicated. As an employer, you will need to assess whether a proposed employee qualifies for a Certificate of Sponsorship, how long they are able to stay and what your record keeping obligations would be. We help Skilled Worker and Intra-company Transfer applications by initially assessing whether the candidate qualifies, and operating the Sponsor Management System. We will advise on your record keeping obligations and help employees with entry clearance or further leave to remain.

Investors in the UK

The Tier 1 Investor visa allows you to live and eventually settle in the UK, in return for inward investment of at least £2 million. It also provides an accelerated route to indefinite leave to remain (settling in the UK) after three years if you invest at least £5 million or two years if you invest at least £10 million.
We will help guide you to a successful application and can introduce you to trusted contacts including international tax advisors, wealth management professionals and private bankers.

Immigration compliance

Immigration compliance visits by UK Visas and Immigration have increased recently. If your business does not meet the requirements, your permission to sponsor workers could be revoked. Those who have employed workers without the correct immigration permission can face fines of up to £20,000 per employee.

We will check your HR systems and suggest changes to ensure your system meets UK Visa and Immigration requirements. If you have an existing problem in respect of immigration law, we can propose solutions to address the issue and help you meet employment law obligations.

How Moore Barlow can help

As immigration law experts, we always keep abreast of changes in regulations so you can have complete confidence in our advice. Our support will help you meet your responsibilities, stay compliant as a licensed sponsor, and avoid civil penalties.

We provide comprehensive and practical immigration support packages to HR teams and business owners, across all industry sectors. We will work closely with you to understand your current and future needs, and tailor our advice accordingly. This includes drafting all your supporting documents accurately and correctly, helping you avoid application delays and ensuring your new employees can start working in the UK as quickly as possible.

Our expert team are based across our offices in London, Southampton, Richmond, Lymington, Woking and Guildford, and we are ideally placed to offer specialist support to businesses locally, nationally and internationally.