Age, Qualifications, and English

Age criteria

While age is not a precluding factor for the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP), there is a special provision of five bonus points for those under 32 years of age.

Applicants who are making an application in the under 32 categories must ensure that they contact us approximately 2 months prior to their birthday, to ensure that all documentary evidence that needs to be prepared by our lawyers can be prepared without risking your case being submitted late. If there is less than two months remaining until your birthday, contact us immediately and we will prioritise your application.

Those who are 32 years of age and over usually have higher earnings, reversing any disadvantage they suffer due to their age.

The points under age are allocated in recognition of the fact that it is more difficult for a highly skilled young graduate to score maximum points in the past earnings category, compared to an older counterpart with the same level of skills. Furthermore, there is a greater potential for young highly skilled individuals to be active in the labour market for longer than their older counterparts.

Points can be claimed as follows:

Age in years	Points
27 or under	20
28 or 29	10
30 or 31	5
32 and over	0

Points can only be awarded to individuals who are still within the age band when we submit their HSMP application to the Home Office.

Education criteria

To be awarded points for your qualification under the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP), the level of qualification you have achieved must be equivalent to the recognised British standard for a Bachelors degree, a Masters degree, or a Doctorate.

Vocational and professional qualifications can also score points in this area if satisfactory independent evidence is produced to show that the qualification is equivalent to an applicable level UK academic qualification. We will obtain any evidence required to show that your qualification is equivalent to the required level. This will be verified, where possible, by reference to the NARIC database or the relevant professional body.

There are no additional points awarded for holding more than one degree. In such cases points are awarded for the highest qualification you hold.

If you have attended one of 50 eligible MBA programmes you may be eligible under the MBA provision for additional points.

In this category you can score the following points according to the highest level of educational qualification you hold:

PhD	Masters	Bachelors
50	35	30

UK experience criteria

You can claim five points if you have previous experience of living in the UK if either:

• You have successfully scored points under the previous earnings category and your earnings were in the UK; or
• You have studied and graduated at Bachelors degree level or higher in full-time higher education in the UK, or at a UK-based overseas educational institution, for at least one full academic year or three continuous terms making up one full year. This educational experience must have been gained during the last five years and you must have been legally entitled to study in the UK during that time.

You can only score a total of five points in this category. You can not score five points for UK earnings and five points for UK qualifications.

The qualification used in to gain points in this section does not need to be used to claim points in the qualifications points scoring area.

English language requirement

Lack of English is considered a significant barrier to taking employment as a highly skilled migrant. In order to qualify for HSMP, an applicant must have a good knowledge of English. We will guide you on providing the appropriate evidence to support this.

In order to demonstrate the required knowledge of English, your easiest form of evidence will be in the form of a Bachelors degree that was taught in English, and is of an equivalent level to a UK Bachelors degree.

Whilst a Bachelors degree that meets the requirements specified above will normally be accepted for the purposes of satisfying the English language requirement of your application, higher level degrees (such as Masters or PhDs) and professional/vocational qualifications will not. This is because a Bachelors degree is normally taught over a period of at least three years, during which time a candidate is required to display a level of competence in each of the four areas - listening, reading, writing and speaking in English. For higher degrees and vocational/professional qualifications it is not possible to establish clearly that such a qualification would necessarily have been delivered in a manner that would test each of the required elements outlined above.

Alternatively, you will need to acquire the equivalent of an IELTS qualification at Band 6, or TOEFL at the equivalent level. We will guide you through the process of obtaining this.

The table below shows the TOEFL equivalence scores required for given IELTS bands. 

IELTS	TOEFL - Paper Based	TOEFL - Computer Based	TOEFL - Internet Based
7.5	627	263	107
7	600	250	100
6.5	577	233	90
6	550	213	79
5.5	525	197	71
5	500	173	61

*The comparison between IELTS & TOEFL scores is based on similar tables on a number of leading UK university web sites. It is not endorsed by either TOEFL or IELTS.