Innovator Visa

The Tier 1 Innovator Programme was designed for experienced business people seeking to establish a Tech business in the UK. Applicants were required to make a minimum investment of £50,000 into their business and could not take on any other employment outside of the business venture. In most instances Consilium expected the applicant to have an investment of at least £150,000 to achieve the goals required for the visa.

Successful innovators were granted an initial visa for 3 years and after that time if the business meets UK Home Office Criteria, then they could apply to remain for a further 2 years, or to settle permanently in the UK. At each step of the journey, the initial application, extension, and settlement requires endorsement from an Endorsing Body.

The Endorsing Body does NOT make any immigration decisions, police the immigration system and is not subject to the same rules and compliance activities that a sponsoring employer would be subject to. As an Endorsing Body approved by the UK Home Office, Consilium were charged with the task to competently assess an applicant’s business plan for Innovation, Viability and Scalability. Consilium did this by insisting that every applicant enrolled onto our Mentoring Programme so that we could fully assess the business against these criteria and ensure that every applicant was fully aware of the obligations, laws and requirements of operating a business in the UK.

As Consilium Consulting we developed a programme that ensured we are best placed to undertake this by following a strict criterion. The Consilium Mentoring Programme was split into work packages over a period of weeks to allow time to develop the business idea and plan future growth of the business giving full regard to both the Home Office and British company law requirements.