my story - initial application to 3 years extention

[sheeda]

Here is my consolidated story, from initial application to 3 years extension.

I was working in saudi for 7 years as a network engineer. I saw the hsmp program but never thought of applying since I was doing good over there. Anyway, a friend advised me just to apply and to see how it goes.

Being a very lazy person, I did apply for it before less than 5 days of my 28th birthday, Here is the timeline.

Posted Application: 25th Jan 05
Recieived by HO: 26th Jan 05
CC Charged: 26th Jan 05
HO wrote approval: 28th Jan 05 (after 2 days)
HO mailed Letter: 31st Jan 05
Received Letter: 5th Feb 05

I was initially shocked to see the approval so soon and was not ready to move within 3 months.

After receiving approval i started to look for online jobs and their salaries in the UK, with other things like living and expenses etc.

I applied for a few network related positions and got offers up to 40k. After doing some more research, I found out that banking sector pays higher salaries and network security skills were in higher demand.

I finally applied for EC with my wife and kid after around 2.5 months of approval and booked myself for few security trainings in London. I finally arrived in London and got initial stamp on passports at heathrow, showing that we all arrived within a week of EC.

After spending around 5k pounds on trainings and passing 2 exams, i went back to Saudi with my family. During my one month stay in the UK, I opened a bank account (without a utility bill) and got a mobile connection with international roaming.

My company in Saudi had a few security projects going on with some banks and I moved into one of those for few months to get banking + security experience. Time passed quickly and I realised that I have less than 6 months remaining on my HSMP visa expiry and I finally decided to take a long leave from Saudi and move to UK with all my household stuff.

Most of my friends & family told me to sell of my furniture and houshold electronics equipment and to buy all new from UK. Me and my wife decided othewise, got everything packed by professional packers and shipped it to the UK. The entire packing and shipping costed me around 1000 pounds for roughly 1.5 tons of stuff.

After arriving finally in the UK, I was questioned by the immigration officer about my absent period. The UK does not stamp your passport when you leave so he could not proove the duration of my leave and he let us all go through.

A month before arriving in UK, I had applied to many jobs online and was receiving many calls by agents on my UK cell phone in Saudi. I figured that most of them did not have good salaries. There were some good paying contracts, but they were asking UK experience.

I received a call one day from a company in the US, who were looking for a security engineer for some work in the UK. They had found my resume from monster and were interested in hiring me.

Once I was in the UK, we had a quick interview on internet voice chat and they agreed to hire me on 55k. They told me to report at a bank and assist them in a security project.

In Dec 05, after around 2 months of work, I got paid christmas break of one month, which I spent outside UK with my family.

Last month, around 4 weeks before my HSMP expiry, I started to work on my extension documents. I had 2 minor issues in my mind, that could effect my extension.

1. I had stayed in UK for around 5 months in 3 portions.
2. I did not pay any tax or registered myslef with inland revenue.

I could not do anything about my duration of stay in the UK, but started to work on tax registration. I googled on the net for uk tax and was redirected to inland revenue site. I called their phone number I explained my status. They told me that I need to have a NI number before anything else. They gave me the phone number for job center, where I booked an appointment and had an interview.

A week before my HSMP expiry, I sent the following docs with Passports for extension.

-Passports for myself and family
-Birth and Marriage certificates with english translations
-Bank statements for 10 months
-Job Contact that I received via email
-Salary slips for 5 months that I receive via email
-House rental agreement, with phone bill
-Interview recepit from Job Center

Here is the timeline:

-Docs sent on 27th March 06
-Received by WP on 28th March 06
-Received ack letter on 30th March 06
-Visa stamped on Passports on 31st March 2006
-Passports & Docs received on April 4th 2006.

I completed my six months with my current employer on the day I received my Passports and got a 10k increase in salary after performance review.

I had a few chats with some other friends who are here on HSMP visa and it seems that UK companies are not so generous in paying and promotions, and they let you work harder than non-UK companies. I am not sure if this is true as I don't have local experience, but it seems that I made a good choice in selecting a non-UK based company.

I have recently found out through this forum that it takes now 4 years, instead of 3 to get the indefiante visa, which sucks.

It would be great if some others can share their experience too. It would be also be good to know what skills are in more demand and higher paying in the UK market.

At the end, I would like thank this forum, which guided me all the way through initial application, EC and extension.