Work to Residence vs. Skilled Migrant Category

[In Cog Knee Toe]

I am considering moving to New Zealand with my family from the UK and I'm not sure which visa to apply for. If we like it we would like to stay so will need to apply for residence. I should be well over the points barrier for skilled migrant category but I can't seem to work out the difference between applying for a work to residence visa and a skilled migrant category visa. I need the visa fairly quickly, but I don't want to make applying for residence take longer than it could.

I am also wondering how visas for my family will work. Should they all apply individually, I think my wife should be okay on the points too, but I'm guessing my children won't be doing much skilled work for a while.

Any advice?

[JandM]

You have to have a job offer in order to apply for a work to residence visa, or any other work visa. You can apply for Residence without having a job offer.

If someone gets a skilled job offer, in order not to keep the employer waiting longer than necessary, most people apply for some kind of work visa as well as Residence. The work visa can be processed fairly quickly, so the applant can have started work while the Residence application, which takes longer because of deeper checks, ticks away in the background.

A Residence application can include the main applicant's partner, and any dependent children (see the INZ dependent child definition). A work visa applicant can sponsor their partner for an open work visa (so s/he can take any job), school-age children of a work visa applicant can get student visas, and pre-schoolers go in on visitor's visas.