If you are thinking of establishing a career in the medical field of the UK, you have to do it after getting yourself a UK work permit. As the UK is a country that welcomes non-UK nationals to help develop the economy, getting a UK work permit is not so difficult.

The main things required to get a UK work permit are the right skills and qualifications for the job. And this work permit is a legal document that is issued by Work Permit UK of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate.

The UK work permit gives a person the permission to work in a specific job and is not transferable between people or jobs. So if you are permitted to work as a nurse in a certain hospital, you cannot opt to work in another hospital as a nurse.

There are six types of UK work permits which are issued based on the category of your employment.

1. Type 1 work permit is for businesses and commercial outfits, is approved on time without many enquiries and is usually applicable to people on the UK Skills Shortage Occupation list. Overseas trained doctors and dentists who want to work or undergo postgraduate training in UK can do so with this permit.
2. Type 2 work permits are issued to people not included on the UK Skills Shortage Occupation list and include sports persons and entertainers.
3. TWES is issued to people outside EU who intend to undertake a work based training programme in UK. At the end of this training, they have to leave UK.
4. GATS is the acronym of Global Agreement on Trades in Services and lets employers outside EU send their staff to UK to handle their work in UK.
5. SBS is a Sector Based Scheme work permit that lets low skilled employees work in sectors like food industry of UK for a maximum of a year.
6. Internship allows students residing in UK, but are studying in Universities and Colleges of UK for higher degrees to undergo internship in UK.

Besides these different work permits, there is the Multiple Entry Work Permit that is used by people who regularly travel to UK for the same employer in UK.

Basically, people who are not settled in the UK are non-EU citizens and are non-British nationals need a work permit to work in the UK. There are some exceptions here; Swiss nationals, Commonwealth citizens with proof of UK ancestry, citizens of Gibraltar and people employed as civilians in NATO forces need no UK work permit.

Even seamen who work under contract on ships scheduled to leave British waters, people who can stay as dependants of a person who is already settled in the UK, some exceptional students and dependants of other categories need not get a UK work permit to work and stay in the UK.

However you need not worry much about getting a UK work permit if you approach a UK recruitment agency for help in finding you employment. All you have to do is to give your qualifications, the medical job you are looking for and your experience. The job of finding an employer for you, and getting a work permit done for you is taken care of by the agency.

M Guzman.