Glossary

• ILR / Earned Settlement - permission to remain in the UK without time limits. The earned route can take between 3 and 30 years.
• Skilled Worker visa - employer-sponsored work visa. The draft sets a baseline of 10 years, reducible to 5 or 3 years depending on salary.
• RQF Level 6+ - jobs that require a university-level qualification, such as a Bachelor's degree (Level 6), Master's degree (Level 7), or PhD (Level 8).
• RQF Level 3-5 - A-levels are Level 3, and things like Foundation degrees, HNCs and HNDs are Levels 4-5. Lower-skill roles usually follow the longer 15-year ILR route.
• Life in the UK Test - required culture/values test before settlement. It's short multiple-choice quiz about British history, culture and everyday life.
• B2 / C1 English - you need at least B2, but C1 can speed things up by a year.
• Public funds - UK benefits (like Universal Credit or housing support). Using them can add 5-10 years to your settlement timeline.
• BN(O) - a special British National (Overseas) visa with a 5-year path to settlement.
• NRPF - No Recourse to Public Funds, meaning you can't claim most UK benefits.
• Community volunteering - helping your local area in a genuine, unpaid way - like working in a charity shop (Oxfam, Cancer Research UK, British Heart Foundation), helping at a food bank, joining park clean-ups, or supporting a community centre.