Immigrationboards.com

Dear all,
I have been browsing the Internet for a while and am getting a bit confused reading contradictory informations on who can be a referee as I suspect some of the information is too old. My question is:

The AN guide states that one referee must be a professional person of any nationality and the second referee must be a British citizen over 25years. I have read the list of accepted professionals and they do specify that retired officers of the military forces are accepted but make no mention of retirement for the other professions. So would a retired airline pilot be acceptable? Do you cease to be counted as a professional when you retire? It is after all still your "profession".

Thank you in advance for your help.

Alizee

Take a look here, first few pages enough.

british-citizenship/accepted-profession ... 22565.html

Thank you for your help johnhkg, the answer in this forum is also unclear.

Basically, no one really knows how to interpret the fact that only the member of the armed forces is listed as active or retired but most people seem to recommend to find another referee to stay on the safe side.

There is a post early in that link with a copy of a reply by UKBA (now UKVI) explaining that the list is not definitive. It also says that referees are not a statutory requirement for the citizenship process. As with all these things, if you need to find an alternative method, it is always best to include a covering letter with your application explaining the circumstances why you have chosen to include a referee who's profession does not appear on the list but would, by anyone normal judgement, be acceptable.