Eligible professions for Skilled Worker visas include ‘canine beautician’. If that isn’t eyebrow-raising enough, it also includes ‘immigration officer’.

Immigration rules are complicated. Expensive lawyers (are there any other kind?) are required, Home Office fees are substantial, and guidance keeps changing. As a result, they can be the source for amusing oversights and bizarre juxtapositions.

Last month, Rob McNeil, head of media at Oxford University’s Migration Observatory, perused the list of professions eligible for Skilled Worker visas and found to his surprise that canine beautician and dog walker were among them.

In his blog, McNeil put this down as being because “Britain is a nation of animal lovers”.

If overseas workers were to be employed as immigration officers, they could find themselves monitoring their own immigration status”

Analysis of three years’ worth of Home Office data to March 2024 reveals that 334 skilled worker visas were approved for “animal care service occupations”, which include dog groomers, dog walkers, stable hands, kennel assistants and veterinary nursing assistants. We’re sure that French poodles and Hungarian vizslas are doubtless happy with the supply of beauticians from overseas, but it does beg questions.

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On top of this, visas were approved for 167 fitness and wellbeing instructors, who include pilates and yoga teachers and lifestyle coaches. Of course, these people are all very skilled and are likely to be outstanding in their fields. It’s just that they aren’t necessarily rare skills.

Although one doesn’t wish to appear unwelcoming or inhospitable, it doesn’t exactly chime with ministers’ desire to slash net migration in the wake of the huge post-Brexit flux.

The observant immigration experts A Y & J Solicitors have brought it to Personnel Today’s attention, however, that the eligibility register for Skilled Worker visas also includes immigration officer and chief immigration officer – despite Home Office advice stating only UK nationals can be employed in the roles.

Yash Dubal, director of A Y & J, points out that if overseas workers were to be employed in those roles, they could find themselves monitoring their own immigration status.

He adds that immigration officer duties include reviewing travel documents and passports, determining if visitors can enter the country and detaining or returning people to their point of departure. The register also includes chief immigration officer, a more senior enforcement role.

Dubal says the anomaly highlights the confusion employers are often faced with when navigating the UK’s immigration employment system.

“While it wouldn’t be possible for the UK Visa and Immigration service to employ migrant workers as immigration officers, because of their own rules, the fact that the role is included on the eligibility list is farcical and illustrates the confusing bureaucracy employers face,” he says.

“The list gives employers mixed signals on who they can sponsor as some of the roles are questionable as being skilled roles, such as street trader or dog walker, bearing in mind the skill level for Skilled Worker visas is NQF 3, which is equivalent to an A-Level.”

Other skilled roles on the list include car park manager, acupuncturist and bee farmer.

But there’s a sting in the tail. Dubal adds that the minimum salary thresholds of £38,700, or the job’s standard “going rate”, or £30,960 under certain criteria, will exclude many of the eligible roles on the list.

“The list does remind us that UK employers have a very broad range of roles to choose from for sponsorship, under the current regime,” he adds.

McNeil says the jobs were on the list because of changes introduced after the UK left the EU. “At the same time as ending free movement, the government reduced the skills threshold to allow middle-skilled jobs to qualify for work visas. Previously, only graduate jobs qualified in the system that applied to non-EU citizens.”

That brings us back to Brexit. Sorry.

 

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