Global Business Mobility: when an intra-company transfer to the UK makes sense, and when it does not

Two routes, one decision

A group with a trading UK entity has two sponsored routes for an established employee: Global Business Mobility Senior or Specialist Worker, the successor to the Intra-company Transfer visa, and Skilled Worker. They share a sponsor licence framework, a certificate of sponsorship and the Immigration Skills Charge, and they diverge on five points that decide the case. Senior or Specialist Worker requires 12 months' service with the group overseas (waived at a UK salary of £73,900 or more), a salary of at least £52,500 or the going rate, no English, and gives no settlement, with a cumulative cap of five years in any six or nine in any ten for those at £73,900 or more. Skilled Worker requires no prior service, an RQF 6 occupation, a salary of at least £41,700 or the going rate, B2 English, and leads to settlement after five years.

The decision is therefore about intention and the person, not about cost. A transfer that is genuinely temporary, for a person who cannot yet pass B2 or who has only just joined the group, is a Senior or Specialist Worker case. A transfer that the group expects to become permanent, for a person who can pass B2, is a Skilled Worker case from the first day, because time on the transfer route does not count towards settlement and a later switch restarts the five-year clock.

When the transfer route is the right answer

The route exists for defined assignments, and it serves them well. A regional head sent to London for a three-year integration after an acquisition; a specialist engineer seconded to the UK affiliate for the life of a project; a finance director covering a UK vacancy while a local hire is found; a Japanese or Korean executive on a rotation that the home office will end on schedule. In each case the 12-month service requirement is met, the salary floor is met by a senior role, and the lack of settlement is irrelevant because nobody intends the person to settle.

Three further features favour the route. The absence of an English requirement means it is available to a technically excellent but linguistically limited specialist, which Skilled Worker is not. The Immigration Skills Charge is waived for EU nationals transferred from the group's EU business for up to 36 months on certificates assigned since 1 January 2023, which matters for groups with a European hub. And the high-earner provision allows a newly hired senior executive at £73,900 or more to be transferred immediately, with the nine-in-ten cap, which is sometimes the only lawful way to move a new hire to London quickly.

The cumulative cap must be calculated before the first certificate. The Home Office counts time in the legacy Intra-company Transfer and Tier 2 (ICT) routes as well as GBM; a person who spent three years in London in 2018 to 2021 has used three of the five years in the six-year window that applies, and may be limited to two years now. Groups that rotate people through several jurisdictions should keep one ledger per person.

When it does not

The route is the wrong answer where the person is meant to stay. The most expensive version of the error is the executive moved on Senior or Specialist Worker in 2024 who, in 2027, is asked to lead the UK business permanently: the three years do not count, a switch to Skilled Worker requires B2 and an RQF 6 role at the salary threshold, and settlement falls in 2032 rather than 2029. If the earned settlement proposals are enacted with a longer baseline, the gap widens further. A group that can foresee permanence should use Skilled Worker at the outset and accept the English test.

It is also the wrong answer for a founder or a family member with no genuine employment record in the group. The 12-month service requirement is a substance test: payroll, contract and social-insurance records must show the person actually worked for the overseas entity in a senior or specialist capacity. A nominal appointment made to qualify for the transfer fails at the application or at a compliance visit, and the sponsor's licence is the collateral.

And it is the wrong answer where the UK entity is not yet trading. A business that has no UK operation uses UK Expansion Worker, with its provisional licence, five-worker limit and two-year cap; a business that is already trading but has no licence applies for a Worker licence covering both routes. Using the transfer route to station a person in London while the UK company is dormant is both ineligible and, for tax, a risk of creating a permanent establishment of the overseas entity.

The family question

Dependants may accompany a worker on either route, with the right to work and study. The difference is that on Skilled Worker they accrue their own five-year settlement period, and on the transfer route they do not. A spouse who builds a UK career during a transfer and then returns home has gained experience but no status; a spouse on a Skilled Worker dependant visa settles alongside the principal. Families should be told at the outset which route they are on and what it means, because it is the family's expectations, more than the executive's, that generate the mid-assignment request to switch.

Schooling follows the same logic. A child placed in a UK school for a bounded transfer should be placed with an exit in view; a child placed for a Skilled Worker assignment can be placed for the long term, and the family may plan for home fees at university if settlement arrives before the course starts.

A decision framework

Where the answers divide, the tie-breaker is reversibility. A Skilled Worker who leaves early has lost nothing; a transferee who stays late has lost years. Groups should default to Skilled Worker wherever the person can pass B2 and the role meets the skill level, and reserve the transfer route for the assignments it was built for.

Mobility capital: what each route actually builds

In mobility-capital terms the two routes build the same knowledge and cognitive returns, since both place the person in real work inside a UK business, but they differ entirely in the opportunity return. Skilled Worker opens settlement, citizenship and the dependants' own settlement; the transfer route opens UK presence for a period and then closes. A group that measures the return on a London posting by what the person can do afterwards, in the UK or elsewhere, will find that a Skilled Worker record, with its PAYE history and settlement option, is worth more than a transfer record of the same length. The transfer route's advantage is that it is available to people and situations Skilled Worker excludes; it is not that it is cheaper or simpler.