Shedding Your Job As A Sponsored Expert Employee

By Isabella Reynard – Immigration Barrister

25 Jun 2025

In This Article

1. Introduction to the Expert Employee Route
2. I Am A Expert Employee, How Lengthy Do I Should Resolve What To Do?
3. Can I Change to One other Visa Route?
4. Can I Keep on the Expert Employee Route?
5. Will This Influence My Indefinite Go away to Stay Software?
6. Can I Journey After My Employment Ends on the Expert Employee Route?
7. Contact Our Immigration Barristers
8. Continuously Requested Questions
9. Glossary
10. Extra Sources

1. Introduction to the Expert Employee Route

In case you are at the moment on the Expert Employee route, your permission to be within the UK depends in your employment, with the identical employer and in the identical function.

Subsequently, in case your employment ends it will impression your permission to remain within the UK. The impression in your permission is similar regardless of how your employment was terminated.

2. I Am A Expert Employee, How Lengthy Do I Should Resolve What To Do?

Your employer, because the holder of a sponsor licence, might want to report that they’ve stopped sponsoring you as a employee to UK Visas and Immigration inside 10 working days of termination of employment. That is performed utilizing the Sponsor Administration System. 

The employer would wish to report this alteration for any motive that they’ve ceased to sponsor the employee, together with the next examples (from the employer’s perspective):

• you turn out to be conscious the employee’s utility for entry clearance or permission has been refused, or their permission has been cancelled, and any administrative assessment of, or enchantment in opposition to, that call has lastly been decided 

• the employee decides to not take up the submit, otherwise you withdraw the job provide 

• the employee’s contract of employment or contract for companies ends sooner than the date proven on their CoS 

• any skilled registration or accreditation the employee is legally required to carry to work within the UK of their sponsored employment (similar to GMC registration for a physician) is withdrawn 

• the employee is absent from work with out pay, or on decreased pay, for greater than 4 weeks and this absence is just not lined by any of the exceptions laid out in part S4 of Half 2: Sponsor a employee •

• you turn out to be conscious the employee has been granted settlement (indefinite go away to stay), or permission on an immigration route that doesn’t require sponsorship 

• the employee resigns or is dismissed, or is made redundant 

• we inform you a change within the particulars of the employee’s employment or wage you may have reported is just not permitted

Please notice that there are further duties for Sponsors referring to offshore employees.

Your permission on the Expert Employee route can then be cancelled as you’d stop to satisfy the necessities of the Immigration Guidelines underneath which you had been granted. That is the case if, for instance:

• You don’t begin working to your sponsor; or 

• You or your sponsor affirm that your employment, volunteering, coaching or job shadowing has ceased or will stop earlier than the tip date recorded on the Certificates of Sponsorship; or 

• The beginning date for the job, as recorded within the Certificates of Sponsorship, is delayed by greater than 28 days; or 

• You stop to work to your sponsor.

Following this, you’ll obtain a letter cancelling your go away which units out that you’ve got sometimes 60 days following the tip of your employment to make preparations, or till the tip of your visa, typically whichever is shorter. In some circumstances, go away might be cancelled instantly however this is able to be in distinctive circumstances. 

Typically, it’s best to search for a brand new job or appropriate immigration route as a matter of urgency when you want to keep within the UK.

3. Can I Change to One other Visa Route?

There are numerous enterprise immigration routes chances are you’ll want to think about, relying in your circumstances, together with:

• International Expertise route – that is for proficient or promising people working within the fields of science, engineering, drugs, humanities, digital expertise and humanities and tradition. 
• Scale-Up route – this requires sponsorship from an organization with a Scale-up sponsorship, a extremely expert job provide on the required wage degree
• Innovator Founder route – that is for these wishing to ascertain a enterprise within the UK. You would wish an modern, viable and scalable enterprise thought to realize endorsement from an endorsing physique.

You may additionally want to think about a private immigration route, together with the spouse route, single associate route or a scholar visa.

4. Can I Keep on the Expert Employee Route?

You might be able to keep on the Expert Employee route by discovering a brand new employer prepared to sponsor you. The employer will want a sponsor licence and they need to challenge and allocate you a certificates of sponsorship. You possibly can then make the immigration utility to acquire permission to work in your new job.

You would wish to show that the job is a real emptiness, on the applicable talent degree and that it meets the wage necessities. You’ll find additional info on the present eligibility necessities for the Expert Employee route in our article UK Expert Employee visa.

Additionally it is value noting that it’s doable to arrange a enterprise within the UK, or when you personal an current one, which might sponsor you, often called self-sponsorship underneath the Expert Employee route. The corporate would wish to first receive a sponsor licence.

Whether or not you might be staying on the identical route or switching to a different, it’s essential that the appliance is submitted previous to the expiry of your current permission. As soon as the appliance is submitted, your permission is mechanically prolonged underneath part 3C of the Immigration Act 1971, till a choice is made.

5. Will This Influence My Indefinite Go away to Stay Software?

Sure, it could impression your prospects of making use of for indefinite go away to stay. You possibly can at the moment apply for indefinite go away to stay when you have been within the UK for a 5 yr steady interval as a Expert Employee. A few of this time might be spent on a mixture of different specified routes.

To use for indefinite go away to stay as a Expert Employee, your employer, who continues to sponsor you, should affirm you might be nonetheless required to work for them and will probably be paid a minimal wage for the foreseeable future. This is able to due to this fact be difficult to acquire ought to sponsorship stop.

Should you swap to a different route, it is best to test whether or not you’ll be able to mix your time spent within the UK with permission underneath the Expert Employee path to depend in direction of a settlement utility. Alternatively, chances are you’ll finally be eligible for indefinite go away to stay on the premise of lengthy residence.

6. Can I Journey After My Employment Ends on the Expert Employee Route?

In case you have submitted an immigration utility, it’s not advisable to journey due to the added component of danger when returning relying on the timings. For instance, a Border Officer could entry your cancellation letter and never allow you re-entry to the UK as a employee. Additional info might be present in our article about travelling exterior the UK whereas ready for an immigration determination.

In case you are eligible to re-enter the UK utilizing the e-gates, you may be coming into as a customer as soon as your sponsorship has ended. As a customer, your situations of permission within the UK are completely different to that of a Expert Employee.

There’s in fact the choice to depart the UK. This must be performed previous to your current permission expiring to keep away from overstaying within the UK. It might then be doable to make an entry clearance utility at a later stage.

For skilled recommendation and help in relation to choices following shedding a sponsored job, together with an additional Expert Employee utility or switching routes, contact our immigration barristers in London on 0203 617 9173 or by way of the enquiry type under.