Working Holiday Maker Visa
For those that didn’t know, I am in the UK on a working holiday maker (WHM) Visa.
In case, you think i was ‘lucky’ enough to get “posted to London” for work. It wasn’t like that.
I took my chance while i still can, gave up everything i have back in Singapore and came here to try my luck. 
Anyways, the purpose of this post is the highlight the upcoming changes to the UK immigration laws.
The working holiday visa will be phased out in November 2008. It will be replaced by the Tier 5 Youth Mobility scheme. Basically for each of the Tiers you are applying for, you have to attain the minimum number of points required, if not, you will be rejected immediately. Previously you didn’t need to ’score’ points to get the working holiday visa. Looking at the eligibility criteria, i think the biggest question about it is the sponsorship section: “you must be sponsored by your national government”. Not really sure how is that going to work. The other sections is more or less sure to score. (If you are already above 31, don’t even need to think about this anymore).
Don’t wanna cause any panic here, but if you don’t want to be the new batch to go through the new rules i suggest you apply for the working holiday visa scheme while you still can.
There are alot of opportunities here in London i feel, but i guess it really depends on what you are looking for at the end of the day. And how daring you are in getting out of your comfort zone and going to a foreign country.
Good luck to all!
This entry was posted on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
