The UK economy is recovering but the Nordics are outpacing it and companies trading with those countries are benefiting. Talent acquisition professionals will be focused on supporting their employers’ growth by efficiently sourcing qualified candidates who have the right to work in the UK.
Brexit and Covid-19 have presented challenges to candidate availability.
Non-UK/IRL candidates now fall into four three categories:
- Awarded Settled or pre-settled status. No restrictions.
Qualified to apply for (1) but not yet applied. The deadline is June 30th 2021.Not available for employment.- Visa required. The candidate will need 70 points to qualify. Can only work for businesses that have sponsor status. The cost for a 2-year visa is £1873.
- Non-UK students awarded a UK degree from 2021 – 2 year permit.
Up to 1.3 million overseas nationals left the UK in 2020 according to Personnel Today – we do not know how many will return.
The challenges for 2022, therefore, are:
- Can you attract candidates from category 1? There will be a salary premium as they recognise their increased rarity/value.
Have you audited your employees in order to ensure category 2 are moving to category 1?- Does your organisation have sponsor status? The process takes 8 weeks.
- How will you secure your future supply of multilingual talent in the long term?
FAQ’s
Q. Professionals with language skills have always been in short supply – can they be exempted from some of the visa requirements?
A. No. Despite lobbying from such organisations as The Association of Translation companies linguists are not recognised as having a protected or shortage characteristic.
Q. Can you find us a candidate that will work from home in their home country?
A. Yes but you will need to set up payroll in that country.