High Potential Individual Visa

The High Potential Individual (HPI) visa is the latest addition to route into the UK for those seeking to come and undertake paid or voluntary work, be self-employed, or look for work for a maximum period of 2 years without the ordinary requirement of having a company sponsor your visa.

To qualify for this visa, you must have graduated in the past 5 years from an eligible University. The eligibility is based on a global ranking of Universities in the past 5 years, you can check whether your University was part of the ranking for the year that you graduated here. Although this new visa route provides an excellent route for individuals of select Universities as it stands the list is limited to universities in very small geographical areas of the World.

Eligibility
As well as having to have graduated in the past 5 years from an eligible university there are some additional requirements.
• The degree that you have obtained has to be at the same level as a UK undergraduate, postgraduate, or PhD.
Note: that if your degree is the equivalent to a UK PhD, you are eligible to stay in the UK for a maximum period of 3 years.

• You must prove you have sufficient personal savings to support yourself for the duration of the visa.

• You must proof your knowledge of English which can again be done through having a University degree that has been taught fully in English.

• You can apply for the HPI visa either from inside or outside the UK.

• You can only apply for the HPI visa once and you are not eligible to apply if you have already been given a graduate visa or you have come to the UK as a Doctorate Extension Scheme student.

Timeline for Application and Decision
You must apply 5 years from getting your degree from an eligible university. Once your application is made and you have proved your identity either through a digital app on your phone for those with passports from eligible countries or through an in-person biometric appointments a decision on your application will be made within 3 weeks though at this time because of crisis in Ukraine decisions are taken up to 6 weeks or even longer in certain case.

If you are currently in the UK on another visa (which is not the graduate or extension scheme student) you are able to switch to the HPI visa if you have otherwise graduated from an eligible university. If you switch to this visa from within the UK the decision may take up to 8 weeks from application date.

Settlement
The HPI visa does not offer a route to permanent settlement in the UK, the idea behind the visa is that it will allow individuals to grow stronger routes in the UK before switching to another route and as such it does not offer a route to settlement and cannot be extend beyond the two or three years.

If you require further assistance on this visa or any other UK visa, get in touch on 01403 801 801 or send us an email at [email protected] to talk to one of our friendly experts.