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Hello! I was wondering if anyone had prior experience in this type of situation, regarding absence outside of the U.K.

I’m applying for ILR skilled worker route (set (o)?) after 5 years.

Last year I spent 3 months outside of the U.K. to go visit my extended family in 2 countries after COVID, using 34 days of annual leave and the other 34 working days REMOTELY WORKING as a one-off, temporary arrangement with the permission of my employers.

Will this be an issue considering:
- I didn’t exceed my 180 days within a 12 month period outside of the U.K. that year
- 34 days was within my paid leave allowance ( 25 days annual + 10 extra for long service leave written in my employment contract)
- I wasn’t sent by my employers for business - it was a personal situation where I hadn’t seen my family since covid, and I just happen to work 14 days in one country and another 20 days in the second country.

Should my employers specify anything in the absence confirmation letter?


In addition, when logging U.K. departure and return dates in the application form, what do you do when you visit multiple countries in one trip? Should you log this as 2 separate trips, or 1 trip with the main country listed?


Thanks for any help on this, I’m trying to find out whether this will be an issue before I submit my application!

The rules do NOT care about your travel details or what you did. As long as your absences were within the limit and approved by your employer, everything else does not matter at all. A period of absence should be declared as one period, the details of your travels outside the UK is no concern to the UKVI

All you need to know about the sponsor letter for Skilled Worker route

Thank you so much for your reply! That's what I gathered from the previous posts but I just wanted to double check that I was understanding it correctly. Really appreciate it

Hi everyone

I was wondering if anyone could help clarify - on the IRL Set (o) application form for skilled worker route, there's a question on immigration history - "When did you first enter the UK?"

I first entered the UK on a Youth Mobility Visa in 2012, then sponsored for 2 years on a Tier 2, moved away for a while then came back on Tier 2 Skilled Worker visa in 2018 - off the back of which I'm applying for the ILR now (since the Youth Mobility Visa and my previous Tier 2 visa doesn't count for any of the 5 qualifying years).

The question I have is, would my "First date of Entry" be the date in 2012 or 2018? Do they care about the 2012 date if the 2 prior visas aren't in my qualifying 5 years?

Thank you!

2018, the question does also clearly say "first date of entry that the period on which this application is based" or something to that effect.