Work Visa

[phileds]

If they're outsourced they won't need visas, will they.

If you want to fly non-EU personnel here to work (a really popular thing to do in an economic downturn), try the Home Office website for visa details. They're paid to help businesses drain this country of skills and jobs in a recession.

As an aside, I've worked alongside insourced IT workers for years and with very rare exceptions, they are expensive and poorly trained, and will often drain any sense of teamwork within an organisation due to language and cultural barriers.

Of the 100 or so I worked with for the past two years, perhaps 5 were worth the candle. Many didn't have the skills their CV's claimed they had - hiring management assumed the outsourcing company would send over what was required, without checking.

And not particularly cheap at £275-600/day often with no skills apart from a course in Java they'd done the month previously, to make them "consultants".

You want to make damned sure your contracts give you the right to sue in an English court, and protect your intellectual property, or you might see your code or system rebadged and selling at a trade fair. It has happened.

Good luck. Hope it isn't your job which is 'insourced' next.

[mick.sap]

The way I've seen it done is:

a) Foreign Coy has a local Subsidary in the UK which contracts for the work from domestic client.
b) Local Sub applies for Visas for employees to visit / work.

This route is normally limited to 3 years or so and I understand it is not subject to the normal quotas.

I think its a tier 2 visa under the new rules (much like the old work permit system). Intra Company Transfer.

Mick..

I'm not a immigration lawyer so don't take this as gospel.

[sal626]

This should be quite simple. If you are dealing with an Indian company who have an office in UK....they simply apply for work permits for the staff they want to bring over. Should take about 3-6 weeks to process a visa. The resources are only allowed to work for the outsourced company's client so the visa is non-trasnferable, and as a previous poster said, it is not subject to quotas.

What I dont get,is why you are concerned by this?
It should be the responsibility of the Indian company providing the resources to sort all this out, especially if they have a presence in the UK.

[OrangeHopper]

Ok, first thing. You have all got the impression I'm sorting this out. Well, I'm not. I just happen to be a contractor contracted by the outsourcer to help the onshore team do its thing.

The vast majority of the onshore team are, as you guessed, Indian and I want to find out what are the terms and conditions associated with their visas. When I first started looking I felt I was lacking a keyword what would allow me to narrow the search. I found myself getting loads of stuff that I didn't know was relevant or not. I thought there might be some real management types on here that had experience of these things.

I will have a look using keywords like "tier 2" and "intra company transfer". Thanks.

[tim123]

Why not employ British nationals for this work, save yourself the visa and communication hassles, and supply work to UK tax payers with a vested interest in this country ???

are you prepared to work for three shiny rocks and a conch shell?

tim

[phileds]

are you prepared to work for three shiny rocks and a conch shell?

tim

Nope, and more pointedly neither are they. Most of the guys I worked with have very nice houses in India, thank you, they're just adding to their lovely nest egg and pension fund.

Just found out my former client is now sending back a large percentage of its inshored workforce back home...at least, those who don't manage to wangle another job here with their laughably and in my experience inaccurately named Highly Skilled (Im)Migrant visas - unless lying on one's visa application is a skill.

Looks like the intellectual property theft finally did for them, as well as the weak pound.