Non EU girlfriend into the UK

[unknownwarrier]

Hi all,

I was wondering if I could get some advice. I am a British citizen and I studied a Masters in Electrical Engineering at University where I met my current girlfriend around 2 years ago now. She is from South America and came over to the UK to do the course. She was basically sponsored by her government to come to the UK and do the course. We both graduated with MScs with exceptional results. Given that she was sponsored by her government, she had to go back to South America to do 2 years as her government sponsored her. That period is almost up now and we have been trying to find ways to be together in the UK.

Our fields of work come under power system engineering which is on the shortage employment list for the UK and she was recently offered a job by a company here in the UK. However, the application to get the cos number was rejected for reasons I am not aware of just yet so we've been quite upset about it.

My questions are:

Have we got much hope? Do we have any other options other than this work visa or getting married?
Also, why is it so difficult for a person who has been educated to an MSc level at a top UK University (paying astronomical fees) in a subject which is on the UK job shortage list to re enter the country to work and benefit this country? This country is in such a dire state when it comes to the number of highly skilled engineers, yet they make it so difficult? I would like to write to the home office and ask them why they are restricting skilled workers into the country, but I think I will wait and see how it pans out first.

Thanks

[manci]

Our fields of work come under power system engineering which is on the shortage employment list for the UK and she was recently offered a job by a company here in the UK. However, the application to get the cos number was rejected for reasons I am not aware of just yet so we've been quite upset about it.

Your girlfriend needs a restricted CoS to come to work in the UK under Tier 2. There is an annual quota of 20,700 for these, broken down into a monthly figure, and applications have recently exceeded the quota. Applications are granted according to a point scoring system, see para 29.17 of the sponsor guidance:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... _v_1_1.pdf
Her "field" may be power engineering but the actual job would have to be listed as a shortage occupation to qualify for 75 points from column 1:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... l_2015.pdf
I suspect that the application for the restricted CoS wasn't for shortage occupation job SOC code 2123, hence the refusal. The company could try again next month

[unknownwarrier]

Our fields of work come under power system engineering which is on the shortage employment list for the UK and she was recently offered a job by a company here in the UK. However, the application to get the cos number was rejected for reasons I am not aware of just yet so we've been quite upset about it.

Your girlfriend needs a restricted CoS to come to work in the UK under Tier 2. There is an annual quota of 20,700 for these, broken down into a monthly figure, and applications have recently exceeded the quota. Applications are granted according to a point scoring system, see para 29.17 of the sponsor guidance:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... _v_1_1.pdf
Her "field" may be power engineering but the actual job would have to be listed as a shortage occupation to qualify for 75 points from column 1:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... l_2015.pdf
I suspect that the application for the restricted CoS wasn't for shortage occupation job SOC code 2123, hence the refusal. The company could try again next month

Thanks for the information manci. It looks like the company may not have applied for the restricted CoS for SOC code 2123. However, the job title is certainly the same. So if they would have applied for SOC code 2123, would she have got 75 points? It looked like during the month it was applied for, only 32 points was needed and she would have far exceeded it?

If the job is the shortage occupancy list like in this case, does the company still need to advertise the job in the same way for a job that wasn't on the shortage occupancy list?

Thanks again.

[manci]

[Thanks for the information manci. It looks like the company may not have applied for the restricted CoS for SOC code 2123. However, the job title is certainly the same. So if they would have applied for SOC code 2123, would she have got 75 points? It looked like during the month it was applied for, only 32 points was needed and she would have far exceeded it?

If the job is the shortage occupancy list like in this case, does the company still need to advertise the job in the same way for a job that wasn't on the shortage occupancy list?

Thanks again.

any shortage occupation will score 75 points from column 1. Note that SOC code 2123 is not the only job in the shortage occupation list in the power transmission field, there are also others, e.g 2129, 2126, etc,
RLMT is not required for jobs on the shortage occupation list.