Professional referee: Manager/Personnel officer

Hi all,

Time has come for me to sort out referees and I would like to know if anyone succeeded (or failed) their naturalisation using a development manager under the category "Manager/Personnel officer" as a professional referee.

I work in a large IT company (limited) and my line manager offered to be my referee. Reading most of the posts I got mixed reviews: some senior members said it cannot be used (but I am not sure if they are talking about the other category or not: manager of a VAT company), while others say they used even project managers (which normally are not line managers, at least in my company).

This person has an engineering degree (not chartered though) and a masters. He has been a development manager for a while and is responsible for recruiting and "taking care" of the developers of a specific office. As I said, I work in a large company...which means there are others with the same title in the company for different offices.

Unfortunately, I don't know the CEO or a registered engineer, nor anyone else in that list that knows me well enough to act as referee.

If anyone knows what consists being a manager for this category and how to prove it, that would help too.

Any feedback is appreciated.

Also, someone responsible for the recruitment of employees? Like an HR specialist in a limited company (again, company is big...so there is more than one).

Seriously, any help is appreciated!