Scottish immigration consultancy Five Star International flagged a same-day update on 15 July in which UK Visas & Immigration refreshed its public guidance on standard processing times. The tables – widely used by mobility managers to plan start dates – confirm that: • Overseas Skilled-Worker, Global Talent and Innovator Founder visas remain on a three-week service level. • In-country Skilled-Worker extensions continue to take up to eight weeks. • Family visas submitted overseas still carry a 12-week target, while certain human-rights extensions inside the UK have no service standard and are currently averaging 12 months. Priority and Super-Priority surcharges (£500 and £1,000 respectively) are unchanged and available for most categories apart from overseas family applications. The refresh is largely cosmetic, but practitioners note that publishing the data on 15 July – two weeks before the 31 July salary-threshold change for Skilled Workers – is a signal that UKVI does not expect a summer backlog. Nevertheless, advisers warn that actual turnaround can slip by a week during August when decision-making teams operate skeleton staffing. Employers should continue to issue Certificates of Sponsorship well in advance and remind applicants to complete biometric enrolment quickly; processing clocks do not start until biometrics are captured or an ID-Check app upload is verified.
Source: Five Star International
