The rollover of Tier 2 sponsorship certificates gets bigger every month, and according to the latest information there are 9,321 sponsorship certificates available for October/November 2011.

In November 2010 the UK Government announced that it was introducing an annual limit on the number of Certificates of Sponsorship that could be issued for Tier 2 workers.

This came into effect on 6 April 2011 and only 20,700 certificates were made available under the new annual limit for the first year.

The annual limit of 20,700 certificates of sponsorship (CoS) were divided in 12 monthly allocations. In April 2011, 4,200 certificate of sponsorship were made available and thereafter a monthly allocation of 1,500 places is being made available. Unused places are rolled over to the next month.

The UK Border Agency operates the limit by not allowing any sponsor to issue a restricted CoS unless they first get permission using the monthly process. If the monthly allocation is over subscribed, the applications for certificates of sponsorship are ranked using a points system designed to favour jobs on the shortage occupation list, scientific researchers and higher salaries.

All applications for restricted CoS must score a minimum of 32 points but applications are collate and prioritised, using the CoS allocation points table.

Due to the roll-over system, this means that 9,321 certificates of sponsorship were available for allocation in October 2011. The next allocation date is 11 November 2011 and we can safely assume that due to the roll-over system there will once again be a substantial number of certificates available for November.

BIC has an excellent track record with Tier 2 applications and all applications submitted so far has been successful. This is thus a golden opportunity for employers who would like to employ non-EU workers on the Tier 2 scheme.