Expert: Graham Thomas - 2/18/2009

Question
I am an American who would like to move to England (Potter's Bar area). I have friends and family (3rd cousins) who live there so will have a place to stay. My question is what type of visa I would need to live there. In addition, I would like to have a part-time job to help cover the costs of food and travel while living there. How hard is it for a young American female (18) to get a job there? I'm not sure if it would make much of a difference but I received very good grades in High School, graduated in the top 10% of my class, received a 100% scholarship to any four year university in Florida, and have had a wide variety of work experience.

Thank you for your time and help,
Kate

Answer
Dear Kate

Unless you can claim citizenship or get married to a national then it is hard to get a work visa.. If you can get sponsored by a firm in the Uk then that would work too.

However since you are young I think there are reciprocal schemes so you can come over to the UK and work/study for a specified period. In the UK the scheme is called BUNAC - for people wanting to go to the US but am not sure how it works the other way round. maybe if you contact them in the US they will know of a scheme to take US citizens abroad.    BUNAC: Volunteer USA  BUNAC PO Box 430 Southbury, CT 06488 United States Phone: (203) 264 0901; 1-800-462-8622

There is also a website called Global visas which details the kind of visas available for travel to the UK from the US

Good luck

Graham