UK to achieve standard 15 days visa processing before year-end

Alex Ellis, British High Commissioner to India, informed that the UK is on track to get back to the 15-day standard processing timings for India to UK visa applications. 

The border closure due to the pandemic had led to a piling up of visa applications post-Covid. This resulted in immigration backlogs– forcing many students, workers as well as tourists to reschedule their travel.

Ellis also tweeted that “We are on track to get back to processing India to Great Britain #visa applications within our standard of 15 days,” while also adding a video where he talks about how the country aims to reach this goal before year-end.

According to him, the visa processing got well outside of the 15-day working standard because of a combination of different things, including a surge in visa applications, the effects post Covid-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

“We have dealt with an unexpected surge in the demand for student visas. There has been an 89% up since last year,” the British High Commissioner added.  

Ellis had previously informed that “Indian nationals were issued the largest number of UK study, work and visitor visas in the year ending June 2022.” According to him, Indians had overtaken the Chinese nationality as the largest nationality that has received ‘sponsored study visas‘ in the UK.

He also informed that the UK had sufficient availability in visa application centers and also urged the applicants to apply for visas earlier.

He also suggested that visa applicants can help by applying a bit early, like three months in advance. “You can also use different services including priority visa service and super priority visa service if you have any particular urgency,” he added.

Ellis informed that the UK is improving backlogs with the support of teams in Delhi, the UK as well as all over world’ and expressed pleasure in informing that he believes visa processes are now back on track. Apart from this, he also advised the applicants to provide all the information that has been requested on time.

The UK is the most popular holiday destination that also holds the highest number of visit visas among Indian nationals as more than 258,000 Indian nationals received visit visas in June 2022. 

In the year ending, Indian nationals also received around 103,000 Work visas which included skilled and seasonal workers. This was a 148% jump from the records of the previous year. Nationals having Indian origins continue to acquire the top position in terms of nationality granted Skilled Worker visas, accounting for 46 per cent of all skilled work visas that are granted globally.

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