North Sea Energy: HR & Immigration Priorities in 2026
North Sea Workforce Planning for 2026 Onwards For decades, North Sea operations benefitted from immigration arrangements that supported flexible overseas recruitment, workforce mobility and long-term platform employment, underpinned by an informal understanding between industry and government. But UK immigration policy has since moved on, with many of the hiring and deployment models the […]
Sponsored Worker Salary Audit: Avoid Home Office Penalties
Section A: When a Sponsored Worker Salary Audit Is Needed Sponsors often assume salary compliance is fixed once the visa has been granted. In practice, salary risk usually develops afterwards through ordinary operational changes rather than deliberate immigration decisions. Payroll may introduce a new deduction, an operational manager may increase working hours or […]
What Are Andy Burnham’s Views on Immigration?
Burnham’s Emerging Immigration Policy Andy Burnham’s historic record places him within Labour’s more liberal tradition on immigration and asylum, but his first decisions as Prime Minister suggest broad continuity with the Government’s existing emphasis on border control, reducing net migration and stronger enforcement. Retaining Shabana Mahmood as Home Secretary, continuing work to end […]
Which Immigration Costs Can Employers Recover? 2026 Rules
Section A: Recovering Immigration Costs from Workers Questions about recovering immigration-related costs arise regularly in the sponsorship context. Employers may fund visa application fees, Immigration Health Surcharge payments, relocation expenses, training costs, sponsor fees and other expenditure associated with recruiting workers from overseas. Where significant costs have been incurred, attention often turns to […]
Remigration by Attrition? How Sponsorship Restrictions Could Reshape UK Immigration
Section A: The UK Sponsorship Expansion Era 2021 – 2023 Between 2021 and 2023, the UK experienced one of the largest periods of legal migration in recent decades. While political debate often focuses on headline migration figures, less attention has been paid to the policy choices that helped produce them. The increase was […]