Immigration

We specialise in helping businesses, individuals and families with all aspects of UK immigration, nationality and compliance.

Whether an entrepreneur starting a business in the UK, a multinational corporation transferring employees or a family relocating to the UK, we provide expert support to help navigate the legal complexities and address the personal or commercial sensitivities that often come with immigration matters. 

We advise on all major UK immigration routes – from work and business visas to family, student and settlement (permanent residence) applications. We also provide guidance on the post-Brexit immigration landscape and a wide range of British citizenship cases. We have particular expertise handling complex matters, providing strategic planning tailored to individual circumstances.

Our advice and support for clients includes:

For businesses:

• sponsor licence applications and management;
• immigration compliance, audits and right-to-work training;
• global business mobility, temporary work visas and overseas staff transfers;
• business visitor guidance and non-sponsored routes;
• support during corporate restructures, mergers and acquisitions to ensure business continuity and compliance; and
• challenging revocations of sponsor licences.

For individuals and families:

• Skilled Worker, Global Talent, Innovator Founder and other work-based visas;
• Student and Graduate visas, High Potential Individual and UK ancestry routes;
• family applications, including bringing dependents to the UK;
• visitor visas and challenging refusal;
• EU Settlement Scheme applications;
• settlement and indefinite leave to remain (ILR) applications;
• British citizenship applications for naturalisation and registration; and
• strategic planning for long-term residence and citizenship, including day count management and compliance.

Work highlights include:

• Advising a high-net-worth client with the planning of their UK day counts in meeting the absence requirement for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) under the Tier 1 (Investor) scheme. Concerns were raised with the client’s absences from the UK and, given the impending Tier 1 deadlines for extension and ILR, alternative immigration solutions were explored, based on the client’s successful private equity venture overseas, which included advice on the Skilled Worker visa and the UK Expansion Worker visa.
• Advising a prominent tech entrepreneur client with applying for the Global Talent visa, including providing future planning advice on obtaining indefinite leave to remain for the client, spouse and their children. Collaborating closely with the Private Client team, strategies were devised to structure the relocation plans to ensure the client’s business interests were considered and efficiently structured in anticipation of becoming UK tax resident.
• Advising two business partners, co-founders of a successful overseas asset management firm, on expanding their operations to the UK through the Skilled Worker visa route. Both partners submitted identical applications; however, while one application was approved, the other was refused due to concerns regarding the proposed role. We challenged the inconsistency in the Home Office’s decision, escalating the matter through our established contacts and providing further detailed representations about the business. As a result, we secured a reversal of the refusal, enabling both partners to proceed with their UK business plans.
• Providing support to a company that had been threatened with the revocation of its sponsor licence due to non-compliance. This included liaising with senior contacts at the Home Office to understand the action required to lift the suspension, and working with the client to put in place the necessary policies and processes to ensure its ongoing compliance with UK immigration law, which led to the licence being reinstated.
• Advising an employer and a new employee on the successful resolution of inadvertent breaches of a sponsored work visa by the employee as they started their employment, which would have led to an automatic refusal of a new visa application. We liaised with the Home Office to highlight mitigating circumstances and request they exercised discretion to approve the application, which was accepted.
• Providing key immigration advice as part of an M&A due diligence exercise, which identified considerable immigration requirements to meet operational demands within the target business. Ultimately the transaction did not progress due to extensive costs to meet ongoing immigration requirements, highlighting the key role immigration can play in M&A.