Applying for sponsorship license

[nareshthandu]

Hello,

My organization processed me to sponsor for Tier-2. For the same they are about to start the process.
As my job is not on the shortage of occupations and not at the Phd level, we need to conduct the Resident Labour Market Test.
My doubt is do we need to conduct the labour market test before applying for the license or could it be done after applying for the license?

Thanks,
Nareh

[desperado1306]

I am going through this process and can say this for sure that labour market test has to happen before the sponsor can apply for your certificate of sponsorship.

[nareshthandu]

Thanks for reply.

After spending some time on the process, I understood it is a 3 step process.
1). Get the License to sponsor an employee(For this no need of labour market test). And this is a time taking process. It may take 12-14 weeks.
2). After getting license, conduct Resident labour market test.
3). Apply for COS with UKBA (Here we need Resident labour market test)

Can somebody please correct me if I am wrong or missing something.

Thanks,
Naresh

[sussexguy]

Thanks for reply.

After spending some time on the process, I understood it is a 3 step process.
1). Get the License to sponsor an employee(For this no need of labour market test). And this is a time taking process. It may take 12-14 weeks.
2). After getting license, conduct Resident labour market test.
3). Apply for COS with UKBA (Here we need Resident labour market test)

Can somebody please correct me if I am wrong or missing something.

Thanks,
Naresh

I think I am currently going through similar situation where my employers have applied for their sponsor licence a good while ago and UKBA is being just too slow to get this done. To answer your question, I think your employer need to have a sponsor license anyway. If your employer has to apply for one they they will get automatic assignment for CoS when their application is approved by the UKBA. You do need to go through the RLMT but when they can conduct this, is somewhat arbitrary, really. I think when they assign the CoS (after getting their licence) they can declare that you have passed your RLMT and provide the relevant details (job centre plus and one more ad reference and duration etc, I am not entirely sure what else).
So the important thing really is a) your employer must have a sponsor licence and b) you pass the RLMT.

Good luck!