Working part time during your studies – new app to help you calculate hours worked

When you work part time it is vital that you keep a careful record of how many hours you are working to stay within the restrictions on your Tier 4 visa.  But it is not always clear what is meant by “a week” for Tier 4 purposes, when a week starts or ends and how your hours add up within a period of time.  Now a new free app has been developed to help you keep track of the hours you are working each week.

The United Kingdom Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) provides the following information about working hours:

How is a ‘week’ defined?

“We asked the Home Office how it defines a ‘week’ when calculating whether a Tier 4 student has complied with the limit of 10 or 20 hours a week of work in term time. The answer we received on 17 May 2016 was:

“Though there is no definition in the Immigration Rules or guidance, our Policy colleagues have previously described a “week” in this context as being any rolling 7 day period”. This means that a ‘week’ does not run from Monday to Sunday or from any other specific day. It might also be different from the definition of ‘week’ used by your employer for wages or shift schedules.

Instead, you must check that in any one 7-day period you do not exceed your permitted hours of work.

If you work irregular hours and/or have more than one employer, you will need to keep detailed records of how many hours you work each day so that you can be sure that you are not in danger of breaching your work condition.”

Source: How many hours can you work? UKCISA website

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Now an immigration adviser at Liverpool has developed a free app that you can use to calculate the hours you work – and it will alert you if you are going over the number of hours you are permitted. You can download it for free from the Play Store (Andriod only):

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=appinventor.ai_cbappdevelopment.week_calculator

IMPORTANT: Please remember that you are responsible for making sure that you are working within the conditions of your visa. If you have any specific immigration questions or concerns about your working hours, please consult one of the Immigration Advice Service team on campus.