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Hello,

I am an Australian who in a couple years will be eligible to apply for ILR - I have been and continue to be on a Tier 2 General visa. My absences so far have been well within the limits, Year 1, 45 days, Year 2, 42 days, Year 3 25 days and I expect that to continue.

However I still have afew concerns after trying to interpret the guidance 'calculating-continuous-leave-v20.0.pdf', specifically in the section on 'Absences linked to reason for being in the UK – evidential
requirements'

It says:

This also includes any paid annual leave which must be assessed on a case by case
basis and should be in line with UK annual leave entitlement for settled workers. For
example, the statutory leave entitlement is 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday each year, which
for workers who work a 5 day week is 28 days’ paid leave. However, many
employers provide 25 or 30 days’ paid leave a year, plus bank holidays.

My first concern is that I have a generous arrangement with my employer where we are allowed to carry over up to 5 days of annual leave but I also had 3 days of annual leave added to my allowance when I hit my salary cap before I renewed my visa on a new salary band/job role. This means I could have up to 38 days leave in a single financial year (30 days standard, 5 days carryover, 3 days negotiated employee benefit).
Would the home office be likely to take exception to applicants for ILR with extraordinarily high amounts of annual leave taken, even if the employer stated in their letter this was part of the employees benefits?

My second concern is around a family visit I want to take back to Australia before my 5 year criteria is met. Anyone who comes from that side of the world knows that it's a long series of flights from the UK and you want to spend more than just a weekend or a week visiting. It will have been close to 3 and a half years since I will have seen many family/friends. I wanted to arrange a months visit, but I didn't want to use up 20 days of leave from my leave allowance for that - instead I wanted to work remotely from Australia for part of that period (e.g. I was thinking 2-3 days a week I would work remotely so I only use 8-12 days of leave). If I wasn't allowed to work for some reason I was hoping I could at least take unpaid leave but that would still be a working days absence.

I see in a part shortly afterwards it says:

You still need evidence where the absences in a 12 month period (as defined above)
exceed 30 working days plus statutory public holidays.

I presume, given the absence limit is so high at 180 days, that the letter from my employer explaining my extra annual leave benefits (for the first point) is fine - since it definitely exceeds 30 working days + statuary public holidays, but for the second point (working for the company remotely in Australia, or failing that, taking unpaid leave) I'm not entirely sure? Does anyone have any experiences they can share in this regard?

Thank you for any help, and sorry if anything I've written isn't clear.

An employer letter is all you need. Absences longer than annual leave is quite common and with a letter you will be fine. Many Tier 2 workers end up working remotely during their absences and that is not an issue at all unless you take a very long leave or if it is unpaid and longer than 4 weeks.

Thank you Zimba, that's much appreciated.