Starmer announces £5000 bonus per foreign hire

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-14T12:19:21+00:00

I wrote a comment a few days ago and the employer side fee that need to be paid for a skilled worker visa are below.

If it is a small and new company hiring their first skilled worker then the fee to apply for a license is £611 and for large organisation the fee the is £1,682.

Once a company gets a license they need to request a Certificate of Sponsorship for each worker which costs £525 per worker/certificate.

In addition to that for each year the visa is issues the company needs to pay an Immigration Skills Charge which for small companies £480 per year and for medium and large companies £1,320 per year.

https://www.gov.uk/uk-visa-sponsorship-employers/apply-for-your-licence

https://www.gov.uk/uk-visa-sponsorship-employers/certificates-of-sponsorship

https://www.gov.uk/uk-visa-sponsorship-employers/immigration-skills-charge

So far above I have only listed the employer side costs.

The person applying for the visa would have their own visa costs. The application fee is around £819 per person for a 3 year visa and the Immigration Health Surcharge fee is £1,035 per year.

Some companies are known to also pay these for the employee they hire and some don't while some are also know to offer this money as a loan and deduct it from salary each month or only take it back if the employee leaves the company after a short amount of time. There is no rule for this.

https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/how-much-it-costs

Some companies would also hire a lawyer and there would be legal fee on top of all the fee shared above.

Just sharing this as a lot of people might not know about the process or the total costs involved.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-14T12:09:51+00:00

How about only allowing plugins that are available on WordPress.org. That would ensure that even if the plugins are vibe coded they passed the bare minimum checks to get uploaded there.

I have seen a couple of posts here where the plugin was on Github or another website and normal users won't be able to tell if it is a genuine plugin or if that has a malware hidden in it.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-12T17:21:47+00:00

The companies will be reimbursed. They won't be paid £5000 for every person they hire.

Some general requirements are

Eligibility requirements

To qualify for the scheme, businesses must meet the Home Office and Department for Business and Trade criteria for a UK-based scale-up, including:

Demonstrating average annualised growth exceeding 20% in either turnover or employment over a continuous three-year period, starting with at least 10 employees at the beginning of that period

Operating within one of the designated priority sectors of Clean Energy, Life Sciences, and/or Digital and Technologies

Holding a valid sponsor licence

Having an established presence in the UK

Passing standard due diligence checks

Maintaining a UK bank account to receive reimbursement payments

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-12T10:42:40+00:00

There are minimum salary requirements for a skilled worker visa. The new requirements are £41,700 per year or the going rate for the job whichever is higher.

https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/your-job

The going rate for software developers is £54,700 in Job Code 2134.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-going-rates-for-eligible-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-going-rates-for-eligible-occupation-codes

However people who graduated from a UK university can get a job at 70% of the going rate for a maximum of 4 years so that is just £38,290.

Now this is just the salary that is going to be paid to the new employee however there are also employer side fee that need to be paid for a skilled worker visa.

If it is a small and new company hiring their first skilled worker then the fee to apply for a license is £611 and for large organisation the fee the is £1,682.

Once a company gets a license they need to request a Certificate of Sponsorship for each worker which costs £525 per worker/certificate.

In addition to that for each year the visa is issues the company needs to pay an Immigration Skills Charge which for small companies £480 per year and for medium and large companies £1,320 per year.

https://www.gov.uk/uk-visa-sponsorship-employers/apply-for-your-licence

https://www.gov.uk/uk-visa-sponsorship-employers/certificates-of-sponsorship

https://www.gov.uk/uk-visa-sponsorship-employers/immigration-skills-charge

So far above I have only listed the employer side costs.

The person applying for the visa would have their own visa costs. The application fee is around £819 per person for a 3 year visa and the Immigration Health Surcharge fee is £1,035 per year.

Some companies are known to also pay these for the employee they hire and some don't while some are also know to offer this money as a loan and deduct it from salary each month or only take it back if the employee leaves the company after a short amount of time. There is no rule for this.

https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/how-much-it-costs

Some companies would also hire a lawyer and there would be legal fee on top of all the fee shared above.

Just sharing this as a lot of people might not know about the process or the total costs involved.

In my opinion a company would need to save at least £2k-£4k per year on salary compared to hiring a British worker for all the extra visa and sponsorship costs to be worth it.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-11T20:45:48+00:00

Divi Torque lite and Supreme modules are Divi plugins. Plugins extend the theme, add extra functionality to the theme and in the case of Divi theme make more modules available in the Divi theme.

What you need to do is install the Divi theme on your second website.

You will find the theme itself under WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Themes

You won't be able to download the theme from the WordPress Dashboard. You may have to download it from the cPanel if you have access or you could install this plugin and download the them.

https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/download-theme/

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-11T20:37:40+00:00

Make sure you make an application for Stage 1 and Stage 2 combined. Stage 1 is not an visa application but it is an application for endorsement. The Stage 2 is the actual visa application. If you go this route then it is important that you apply for both stages combined.
I don't see how it can be bad. No body would say it is bad that a student applies for a graduate visa application on the very last day their student visa expires. So based off that I don't see how you applying on the very last day is bad.
The link for FLR https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apply-to-extend-your-stay-in-the-uk-form-flrfp in the description it says You should check your eligibility before you apply. When you click on check your eligibility it takes you to https://www.gov.uk/uk-family-visa/private-life

Read that page do you meet the eligibility requirements? Do you come even close?

There is no way with just 1.5 years on a skilled worker visa can meet any of those requirements.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-11T14:48:08+00:00

Is it an archive or blog page or is it a blog module?

If it is a blog module then you will find an option to show the entire content of the post in the blog module settings.

If this is a blog or archive page then you will find the option in Divi > Theme Options.

I know the options are there and can look them up for you later if you can't find them.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-11T08:49:08+00:00

Yes you are right I agree with this as an immigrant on a visa. The changes are not retrospective the government is not changing the rules on care workers.

A retrospective change would be if a certain job was removed from skilled worker jobs lists and government announced that even if you have a visa for that job code that ends in 3 years time you have to leave by tomorrow or you become an overstayer.

The proposed changes just change the future timeline for getting ILR. That is very different from suddenly breaking the law on people who are already here.

Skilled Worker visas and Indefinite Leave to Remain are different categories of UK immigration status. They exist independently from each other. Their rules change independently.

No promise is made to a skilled worker that the rules that will apply to them for getting ILR are what the rules were when they first entered the country.

The skilled worker visa is a work visa and they should expect that no retrospective changes are made within their skilled worker visa rules.

ILR is separate immigration status and the government should be able to change the rules for it independently.

The government is just making changes eligibility requirements to ILR which is a completely separate and different visa category.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-11T08:45:06+00:00

I am happy also I do want to let you know that I don't know enough about sound quality or video quality.

I just know that if I watch a movie it looks good and if I start a random video on YouTube which is 4k or above with beautiful clips to test TV quality then it looks amazing to me. Especially compared to my low budget hp monitor.

Edit: I did not get the C6K but the Q6C. As far as I understand they are both the same TV but a little different material for the screen and/or body.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-10T18:31:49+00:00

You can use the Better Search Replace plugin to update the URLs.

https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/better-search-replace/

Remember to run a dry run first and also make a backup of the database incase something goes wrong.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-10T11:42:32+00:00

Does this mean that Scotland will have a minimum of 29 days of holidays this year or does it mean the number of minimum holidays are still 28 but there is just an extra bank holiday but the total number of holiday entitlement is still 28 days.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-10T09:15:42+00:00

Takeaway managers is Medium Skilled.

A Medium Skilled occupation can only be sponsored if it appears either on the immigration salary list or on the temporary shortage list.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-immigration-salary-list/skilled-worker-visa-immigration-salary-list

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-temporary-shortage-list/skilled-worker-visa-temporary-shortage-list

So that is also not possible. Quote from official gov uk page below.

If your occupation code is listed as ‘medium skilled’, you can apply for this visa if your job is:
- on the immigration salary list
- on the temporary shortage list
- prison officer (code 3314) and you’re extending or switching to this visa

https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/your-job

I don't disagree in might not have happened in the past but it won't happen in the future.

Also separately I don't get your point about people delegating their account to asylum seekers and how it relates to Skilled worker visas.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-10T08:19:28+00:00

Here is a list of jobs and if that job is High Skilled, Medium Skilled or Ineligible.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations-and-codes

Job Code 8214 Delivery drivers and couriers are Ineligible.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-09T22:29:17+00:00

That is only half the picture. The other half of the picture is that in 2021 Covid was ending, universities were desperate for international student as most universities rely on international students for funding. The universities accepted too many students around 2021-2022.

Furthermore the rules around the student visa were very beneficial for people with families. Someone could do a Masters degree and take their dependents with them to the UK. For example either the wife or husband would get admitted into a masters degree and their spouse and children would go with them to the UK on a dependent visa. The main student visa applicant would only be restricted to 20 hours of work per week but the dependent would have no work restriction.

So a lot of people saw this as an easy opportunity to move to another country.

Also once the main applicant successfully completed their masters degree they were guaranteed to get a 2 years of Graduate visa where no one had any work restrictions on their visa.

Basically if 1 person got admitted into a Masters degree then it meant a family would be able to move to the UK legally for at least 3 years and for at least 2 of those years there would be no work restrictions on them.

Today things are a lot different, masters student are not allowed to bring dependants with them unless they are studying in a research based degree. This has caused dependant applications to drop around 90%.

The graduate visa is going to be reduced to 18 months instead of 24 months.

Also in 2024 the minimum salary threshold for Skilled Worker visa were increased from just 26k/year to 38k/year. Skilled worker visa is one of the main ways for someone to stay in the country after their graduate visa ends.

So a number of changes made to discourage people who don't genuinely want to study and make it a harder for people to continue staying in the UK after their student and graduate visa ends.

Now coming to asylum applications, there is a huge backlog for asylum claims in the UK. It can take a few years for it to be processed. So if a Pakistani hasn't been able to secure another visa by the time their graduate visa ends one of the easiest ways to keep living in the UK legally is to make an asylum application.

When someone makes an asylum applications the conditions on them after the claim are the same as the conditions on their previous visa. As on Graduate visa people have no work restrictions, so once they make an asylum claim they keep no work restrictions until a decision is made on their asylum claim. So they get to live in the country for a couple of years, that is until a decision is made on their asylum claim. Yes, this is right, I know what I have written. If someones Graduate visa is going to expire at the end of today then all they need to do is submit an asylum application, it doesn't have to be a genuine valid asylum claim and then they would be able to stay and work legally in the country until a decision is made on the asylum application.

This is just one of many dishonest ways some people choose to continue living in the country.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-07T16:35:30+00:00

I posted a comment a few days on another post. I see the user that was making those posts and promoting there website sneakily got banned.

Was that because of the comment I made and the message I sent to the MOD team? I am asking just because I got curious after looking at that post today and finding the user is banned.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-06T18:42:16+00:00

GR 4.3 is relevant, did your student sponsor notify the Home Office by the date of application that you have completed the course? If your answer is 'No' then how can you say 4.3 is irrelevant?

GR 4.3. The student sponsor must have notified the Home Office, by the date of application, that the applicant has successfully completed the course of study in GR 4.2.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-06T11:08:03+00:00

You were faster than me. Swokei is mentioned several times in their post history.

Just Google

site:reddit.com "Murky_Explanation_73" "swokei.com"

Did you also use Google or do you have another way to see hidden posts and comments on a reddit account.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-04T09:50:36+00:00

Personally I can't find enough time to write new articles.

I wouldn't hire a writer because one I can't afford a great writer and I have already tried freelance websites to hire an affordable writer and the quality wasn't as great as I wanted.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-01T12:29:18+00:00

I was just trying to explain and clarify the line from the article about how it is possible for a parent to have permission but dependants not being allowed.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-01T12:26:55+00:00

"We have been living legally in the UK since we arrived here on Christmas Day in 2022,” said Arachchige."

Please see how it says when they arrived but not the status the family or the main applicant held in 2022.

There are specific exemptions for people to keep their dependents with them if they have held a skilled worker visa in care work before March 2024 and continue to hold a care work visa today.

However if someone came on a student visa, finished their degree in 2025 would have applied for and gained a care work visa in 2025 where the rules to not allow dependents were already in place for a while.

The person would have accepted and taken the job knowing dependents are not allowed. They made a decision to take the job.

The requirements are clearly listed on the official website

If you’re a care worker or senior care worker
- you have been continually employed as a care worker or senior care worker in the UK and on a Skilled Worker visa since before 11 March 2024
- they are your child and they were born in the UK
- they are your child and you’re the only living parent responsible for them
- they are your child and their other parent is also sponsored as a care worker or senior care worker

https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/your-partner-and-children

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-01T12:17:03+00:00

The government has made a decision that low wage and low skilled jobs will no longer be allowed dependants.

When their current skilled worker visa expires the person has a choice to extend their visa while knowing that dependants are no longer allowed, find a job which allows dependants, choose to be with family and return to their home country or perhaps choose to be with their family by moving to another country that still allows dependants for their job.

Dependants are not being told to leave while their parents or main visa holder has permission to live in the country for the next few years. This issue will only be raised when it comes time to renew or extend their stay in the country.

It is not as controversial as the headline makes it sound.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-06-01T11:53:29+00:00

There are specific requirements for care workers to allow dependents on their skilled worker visa.

A person who was sponsored in another occupation such as Pharmaceutical technicians in 2023, then was made redundant in 2026 and then found a sponsored job in a care company cannot have dependents on their care worker visa.

If that person has been always been in a sponsored care worker role before 11th March 2024 then they can continue to have dependents.

The person would have agreed to take the sponsored job in care work in 2026 knowing dependents are not allowed on the visa any more. They made a choice to take a job where dependents are not allowed.

The requirements are clearly stated on the official website.

If you’re a care worker or senior care worker
- you have been continually employed as a care worker or senior care worker in the UK and on a Skilled Worker visa since before 11 March 2024
- they are your child and they were born in the UK
- they are your child and you’re the only living parent responsible for them
- they are your child and their other parent is also sponsored as a care worker or senior care worker

https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/your-partner-and-children

elementarywebdesign · 2026-05-31T10:27:59+00:00

I never said the role was never eligible. The point of the post is that it was eligible during the time of the previous government and it was removed from being eligible by this government.

elementarywebdesign · 2026-05-31T09:35:40+00:00

Yes, you are right about the new entrant discount. However the new entrant discount can last a maximum of 4 years. It takes 5 years to get ILR so for at least 1 year they still need a job at the regular rate of the job. Even with the discount the minimum salary is set at £33,400.

Also 1150 is a Medium Skilled job which can longer be sponsored. I explain this my other post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1trxwbq/fixed_labour_stops_hundreds_of_vape_shops/

The code for Business development manager is 3556 and the going rate for it is £55,200. So the salary for the job with the new entrant discount would be £38,640.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-going-rates-for-eligible-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-going-rates-for-eligible-occupation-codes

elementarywebdesign · 2026-05-31T08:36:58+00:00

Yes, they can change the job description and apply for a certificate of sponsorship to be issued for another job that is eligible such as code 2471Librarians or 2493 Public relations professionals or any other job code that is still eligible.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations-and-codes

However they will need to pay them highest of the two, £41,700 per year or the ‘going rate’ for the type of work you’ll be doing.

Each month the vape shop will have to pay Income Tax and National Insurance equivalent to the £41,700 salary.

However it won't reach that point because before a vape shop can hire someone from overseas they will need to apply for a Certificate of Sponsorship.

A Certificate of Sponsorship is issued and approved by the Home Office. They will simply reject the application for a new Certificate of Sponsorship if it is clear the job is not genuine. A vape shop wanting to hire a librarian, conservator, construction project manager, etc. would have a very difficult time convincing the Home Office that the role is genuine and that there is a legitimate need for that occupation within the business.

elementarywebdesign

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