WtR: Long Term Skills Shortage List

[kavinsky]

Hello again,

I put my application in for a work to residence, long term skills shortage list visa today (developer programmer, submitted online), and was checking timings to make sure that I'd have the visa in place for my first day of work (9th of January).

I checked on the office processing times, which stated 3 months to process it, which obviously wouldn't let me start when I need to, so I rang the company responsible for London visa processing queries (TTServices), who have stated over the phone a 5-7 day turn around for approval of the visa.

My question is, does anyone have experience of WtR visa processing times in London? It's not that I doubt the timings quoted by TTServe (you'd assume that they have the right details after all) but I really don't want to miss out on my start date, and if I'm going to need an essential skills visa in the meantime, with Christmas coming up, I really need to get that application in sooner rather than later, so yeah, does anyone have any ideas (assume no issues with the medical [panel doctors didn't think there'd be anything, and I'm a regular blood donor], and that my top up BSc from an exempt institution is fine [my ex partners top up degree was fine for an essential skills visa])?

Continuing thanks for all the help in this forum from peeps

[JandM]

to make sure that I'd have the visa in place for my first day

Sorry, but you CAN'T be sure of any such thing. Getting a visa is not like buying a commodity. It's a request to the NZ government to be admitted on certain grounds, and every piece of evidence in your application has to be assessed. Also, your application joins the queue of everybody else's applications, and they're dealt with in the order they arrived, regardless of what an employer and applicant may wish to have happen. Any statement of times by INZ is NEVER a promise, only their best guess based on recent averages.

WTR and Essential Skills visas are both temporary work visas. If one kind wouldn't be ready in time, there's no reason to suppose the other would be. In fact, there will be less checking to do on WTR than on Essential Skills.