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Hi All,

I have been on a Skilled Worker Visa with the same employer since April 2019. This is +5 years and hence I qualify to apply for ILR.

My employer granted me 3 months of unpaid leave (from December 2023 - February 2024) which I took, spending the entire time outside of the UK in my home country. The reason was to spend time with family after several years away from home.

I'm only reading now that the maximum unpaid leave on a Skilled Worker Visa is 4 weeks, which I clearly exceeded (not knowing that this was not allowed / may cause future issues). My workplace maintained my SWV sponsorship the entire time, with no break at any point.

Will this impact my ILR application?

Thanks in advance for your guidance!

This is just a failure on the part of your sponsor to follow their duties as they should have not agreed to such arrangements. Here is what the relevant sponsor guide says on this issue:

Absence without pay or on reduced pay
SK8.1. You must normally stop sponsoring a worker if they are absent from work without pay, or absent on reduced pay, for more than 4 weeks in total according to their normal working pattern, during any calendar year (1 January to 31 December), unless the absences are due to any of the following:

• statutory maternity, paternity, parental, shared parental or adoption leave
• sick leave
• assisting with a national or international humanitarian or environmental crisis, with your agreement
• taking part in legally organised industrial action
• jury service
• attending court as a witness

Guide: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... 3_v1.0.pdf

Your sponsor is normally expected to stop sponsoring you if you go on unpaid leave beyond 4 weeks in a year as you can see. Assuming your sponsor did not do that, I'd say UKVI will not bother. The employer letter simply needs to say the absences were approved by them.

See: https://www.immigrationboards.com/indef ... l#p2090242

Thank you for your response Zimba.

The letter from my employer includes the following text:
[Employee Name] is entitled to 25 days of annual leave per annum in additional to bank and public holidays. Absences from the UK during annual paid leave for vacation were taken in a personal capacity.

Is this appropriate? It makes no reference to the unpaid leave I took.

Yes