The introduction of the UK tier visa was done so as an intention of simplifying and rationalising the outgoing UK immigration services into a more straightforward and transparent structure. As part of this new immigration points based system, visas for the fifth tier will replace a range of youth mobility schemes such as the Commonwealth Working Holidaymaker (WHM) and the Au Pair Programme with a single system which introduces a uniform set of requirements.

There are five tiers altogether in the new immigration points based system. All of these tiers have a different purpose and function and depending on your skills and qualifications as well as why you want to come to the UK depends on which of these tiers you apply to in order to come to the UK. For the purpose of this article I m going to be looking into Tier Five of the UK Immigration Process.

Tier five is to be used by youth and mobility workers. It is being put in place for working holiday makers, temporary exchange workers and voluntary workers. The main purpose of tier five is to allow people to work in the UK for a temporary period of time.

As with all of the tiers, excluding tier one you will be required to gain sponsorship in order to come and work in the UK as part of tier five. This sponsorship usually comes from the migrant’s home government and the certification that is issued to confirm the sponsorship is done so to provide assurance that the migrant will abide by the terms of the temporary or voluntary work.

Tier five is being brought into force to replace the current system, which allows youth and mobility workers to come to the UK via the Commonwealth Working Holidaymaker (CWH) and the Au Pair Programme. Under tier five of the new UK immigration system migrants can come to the UK for a wide array of entities such as diplomatic missions and registered non-profit organisations. If you are a voluntary worker you are required to get sponsorship from a charity, which must be able to prove that the activity you will be carrying out is relevant to the organisation.
All applicants within tier five require sponsorship so that it is proved they will pose no threat to the UK’s domestic work force and that they are in the UK specifically for a set purpose.

Under tier five of the new UK immigration system you are not allowed to bring dependants to the UK with you and you are also not allowed to switch to a different tier. Tier five was not put in place to grant permanent Residence to workers.
The option of applying to work within the UK under tier five is available to applicants from participating countries aged 18-30 and will grant leave to enter the UK for a maximum period of 24 months.

This aspect of the new UK immigration system will be brought into force during Autumn of 2008, which is only a few months away. So if you are planning on coming to the UK during this time you need to ensure that you find out as much information as possible about tier five.

Helen is the web master of Immigration Consult, specialists in all aspects of Tier Five.