I saw a lot of threads on here when I submit my application with similar questions to mine, so I thought I’d post my experience, timeline, and basic information about my application to help others.
Stage 1 timeline:
I prepared my documents, which took me about 3 days. More on the documents below.
I submit the online form and paid the initial fee on Sept 7, 2025 and received an email asking me to email my documents to the home office.
I emailed my documents on Sept 8, 2025.
Shortly after sending my email (less than 5 minutes later), I received a confirmation that my documents were received.
On Sept 17, I was informed via email that my application was referred to tech nation and to wait up to 8 weeks for a response.
On Oct 2, I received an email that I had been endorsed for Global Talent.
Stage 2 timeline:
On Oct 3, I paid my NHS fees and stage 2 fees. I scheduled the biometric appointment and uploaded documents to the biometric 3rd party. I think as long as you upload a scan of all the pages of your passport and your endorsement email, that should be enough… but I also uploaded additional documents (financial statements, mortgage statements, and my driver’s license) to the biometric provider’s website.
On Oct 7, I went for my biometrics appoint to submit my fingerprints and face photo. I was told it could take up to 3 weeks for a decision.
On Oct 8, less than 24 hours after my appointment, I received an email that my visa was approved.
On my application, I submit the following:
3 letters of recommendation. I used DocuSign for all three and created a PDF file that included the letter, signature page, the DocuSign tracking page that shows the IP addresses, and the CV of each of the recommenders. The recommendation letters themselves were less than 3 pages, but the total size of the PDF was several pages. One of my recommenders is in academia and their CV was over 10 pages long, so that PDF was quite long (over 16 pages total)… but the actual recommendation letter itself was under 3 pages.
My CV (3 pages).
Mandatory evidence 1: evidence that I command a high salary. I showed a table of my earnings for the last several years with the amounts listed in GBP and the conversion rate between currencies specified. I included tax documents to prove that these amounts were correct. The document was 3 pages long.
Mandatory evidence 2: evidence that I contribute to a high profile open source project. The project I am a major contributor to does not use GitHub, so I provided screenshots of commit histories and links to community recognition of my contributions.
Optional evidence 1: evidence of the impact of the open source contributions I made. This included screenshots from several online publications which featured my work.
Optional evidence 2: evidence of conference talks that had significant viewership. I included several screenshots of me on center stage, a link to the conference website where you can find my talk listed, a link to the slides, and a link to the video. I also confirmed how many people attended the conference and clearly listed if my company sponsored any of the conferences.
Optional evidence 3: significant contribution to a startup as a technical founder. I included two diagrams of the technical architectures for a complex web app I built that did millions of dollars of revenue during its lifetime. The revenue generated was proven by a screenshot of the profit and loss statement of the business.
Optional evidence 4: evidence of a track record of innovation as a founder, I included the profit and loss statement of a startup I started which did millions of dollars of revenue and the first page of the Letter of Intent of the buyer of my company which bought my company for multi-million dollar sum.
In particular, I was concerned that the PDF of the letters of recommendation would be over the 3 page limit due to the length of the included CVs, however this did not seem to matter. It seems as long as the recommendation itself is under 3 pages, it is apparently OK if the entirety of the document is over 3 pages.
Hope that is helpful and good luck to all who are applying.
@Jim On the stage 1 recommendation letters: you should probably use DocuSign since it is recommended in the Tech Nation guide. The letterhead is probably fine (only one of my letters used letterhead – the other two letters did not).
On your stage 2 questions: I think all of that is optional. I wouldn’t worry about stage 2 until you get the endorsement for stage 1. Once you get the endorsement, you’ll get specific instructions for stage 2.
For me, it seemed that driver’s license and financial documents were all optional in stage 2, but I submit them anyway because I had easy access to them and I thought it couldn’t hurt.
You cannot submit more than 10 evidence documents as it’s a breach of guidelines. Please limit to 10 as any additional document will not even be reviewed and instead flagged for lack of understanding of guidelines.
Congratulations again🥳. Please did you have to upload the document on docusign yourself and send to your recommenders email to sign? Or they uploaded it themselves on Docusign?
@Jim I submit the bare minimum evidence, exactly as described above in my message. Good luck with your application.
@blessing_adeola I wrote the recommendation letters myself and sent drafts to the recommenders. I then made any changes they requested (mostly they requested minor changes) and after the edits I put everything in DocuSign and sent it to them to sign. I did as much of the work as possible to minimize the amount of work the recommenders would need to do.
Congratulations!! This is very impressive
I have one question Did they just accept your financial statement screenshots? Or did you submit audited financial statements?
I submit a screenshot from accounting software showing the profit and loss summarized from the start of the business to the acquisition (this covered a multi year period). I also submit a screenshot of the balance sheet of the business covering the same multi year period and a screenshot of the first page of the letter of intent from the buyer of my startup.
Neither the profit and loss nor the balance sheet were audited – they were just simple screenshots but summarized data over the life of the business. Not sure if it matters, but my startup did several million dollars in profit over this time period.
Please I’d like to know more about this letter of intent. I have a product I’ve been getting some interested buyers in. Is letter of intent a standard verifiable document? Or just anything any interested party can send you?
@Reezy A letter of intent is what some one (or some company) sends you when they intend to purchase your business from you. It is a legal document that both parties sign to begin the due diligence process. In my case, I sold my company and the announcement of its acquisition can be found via google which means that some one reviewing my application and seeing the first page of the letter of intent (which specifies the purchase price) as part of my evidence, could google and verify that the acquisition did indeed occur.
If you are referring to a purchaser of your product (in other words, a user)… I don’t think that would be compelling evidence in my unofficial opinion. It’d probably be better to submit financials instead to give an overall picture of revenue/profit vs a letter of intent from a single customer.
. Its quite impressive though to gather your evidences in 3 days!
