Rejection Case Replanning (£700)

What is Rejection Case Replanning?

Rejection Case Replanning is a diagnostic and rebuild service for people whose Tech Nation endorsement has already been refused. A refusal is not the end of the road, but a second attempt that repeats the first is money spent twice. Replanning exists so that the next application is materially different from the one that failed — grounded in exactly what the assessors said, not in guesswork.

The starting point is your actual refusal notice. Endorsement decisions set out the reasons an application did not meet the standard, and those reasons are the most valuable evidence you will ever get about your own case. Most applicants read the notice once, feel deflated, and move straight to reapplying. We do the opposite: we treat the notice as a specification and work backwards from it.

Since 4 August 2025 applicants complete a single GOV.UK Stage 1 endorsement form, with Tech Nation continuing as the endorsing body. Any advice built around the old separate application form is out of date — and stale guidance is one of the quiet reasons good applicants are refused. Part of Replanning is making sure your second attempt is built on the current rules, not last year's.

What is included in the £700?

Rejection Case Replanning is a fixed £700 and includes six things, delivered as a written analysis plus the full assessment report.

• A full read of your refusal notice. We go through every line the assessors wrote, not just the summary, so nothing they flagged is missed.
• Every reason mapped to the criteria. Each point in the notice is tied back to the specific mandatory criterion or optional criterion (OC1–OC4) it relates to, so you can see precisely where the case fell short.
• Root-cause analysis. We look past the symptoms to the underlying problem — for example, evidence of impact stated at team level rather than individually, or referees who were not senior enough or not from product-led digital technology companies.
• A prioritised revamp plan. A clear, ordered list of what to fix first, what matters most, and what can be left — so your effort goes where it changes the decision.
• A route reassessment. A fresh look at whether Exceptional Talent or Exceptional Promise is the right basis for you, and whether the Digital Technology route remains the strongest path.
• The full assessment report included. The same structured Fit Assessment we run for new applicants — score out of 20, component-by-component breakdown, a 10-document evidence plan, letter and referee strategy, and a risk register — so you rebuild against a scored baseline, not a hunch.

Delivery is by secure download links and email. There is no sample report — we prove the quality with the report structure, the plan and the outcomes, not with a redacted specimen.

Is Replanning the same as the free 28-day endorsement review?

No — and the difference matters, because choosing the wrong remedy wastes the one you should have used. There are two distinct paths after a refusal, and they do not overlap.

The endorsement review is free and non-statutory. It must be requested within 28 days of receiving the decision, and the outcome is emailed within 28 days. Critically, a review challenges process errors only — including evidence that was not properly assessed — and no new evidence may be added. There is only one review per refusal, and requesting one does not extend your permission to stay. It is the right move when you genuinely believe the assessors made a procedural mistake.

Rejection Case Replanning is for the far more common situation: the decision was procedurally sound, and the honest answer is that the case as presented did not meet the bar. Here a review would fail, because you need to add and reshape evidence — which the review does not allow. Replanning accepts the refusal, diagnoses why it happened, and rebuilds the case for a stronger fresh application. Our 28-day window guide walks through how to decide between the two, and the success rate and refusal-reasons guide covers the wider picture. If you are inside the 28 days and unsure, read those first.

How do you find the root cause of a refusal?

We start from the reasons in your notice and match them against the recurring patterns reported by applicants and advisers, because most refusals cluster around a small number of avoidable problems. Naming which one applies to you is the whole point.

• Recommendation letters that do not carry weight — referees not senior enough, not from product-led digital technology companies, or letters that are vague, generic, or simply mirror the personal statement. Tech Nation's own guidance names weak letters as a primary reason for non-endorsement.
• Recognition that lives only inside your own employer — impact that is real but never visible beyond the company you work for.
• Achievements stated at team level without individual attribution, leaving the assessor with insufficient evidence of your personal impact.
• Optional-criteria evidence rejected on technicalities — employer-organised speaking, internal-only mentoring, or articles that are generic or published just before applying.
• Service-based experience judged "not product-led", a recurring issue for engineers at consultancies and agencies.
• Recency confusion — strong material that falls outside the five-year window and therefore does not count.
• The mandatory criterion failing even where the optional criteria were met.

Once the root cause is named, the revamp plan follows directly from it. If the problem is letters, we rebuild the referee strategy first; if it is individual attribution, we rework how your impact is evidenced across the ten documents. The plan is prioritised so you fix the decision-changing issues before the cosmetic ones.

Will you reassess which route I should be on?

Yes. A refusal is the right moment to check that you applied on the correct basis in the first place. Settlement comes after three years for those endorsed "as a leader" (Exceptional Talent) and after five years "as a potential leader" (Exceptional Promise), and the two are assessed differently. Some applicants are refused not because they are weak, but because they applied as one when the evidence pointed to the other.

The route reassessment weighs your evidence honestly against both, tells you which is the stronger fit, and flags where the Digital Technology route is genuinely the right home for your profile. Where a case is harder — for example, a service-company background or a shortage of external recognition — we say so plainly and set out how to strengthen it, rather than encouraging a second attempt that would fail the same way. Honesty is the point of the exercise. Our Talent versus Promise guide covers the distinction in full.

Who is Rejection Case Replanning for?

It is for anyone who has received a Tech Nation endorsement refusal and intends to try again seriously. Reapplying is not free — a fresh endorsement application means paying the £561 endorsement fee again, followed by the £205 visa fee at the visa stage, so £766 in government fees before any professional help. Spending £700 to make sure the second attempt is genuinely stronger is a deliberate hedge against paying those government fees twice for the same outcome.

Replanning is the diagnosis. When you are ready to rebuild, it flows naturally into our delivery services: Done-with-you (from £2,500) if you will do much of the writing yourself with our guidance, which includes support for one endorsement review; or End-to-End Writing (£4,500) if you want the whole application built from scratch — a package that includes one free reattempt support if the outcome goes against you. By comparison, immigration law firms typically charge £4,500–£9,000 +VAT for full-service help.

If you have not yet been refused but fear you might be, you do not need Replanning — you need the £200 Fit Assessment first, before you risk £766 in government fees.

What is your next step?

Send us your refusal notice and any evidence you submitted. We will read all of it, map every reason to the criteria, name the root cause, and return a prioritised revamp plan, a route reassessment and the full assessment report. From there you decide whether to rebuild yourself or have us do it — and the diagnosis stands either way.

We do not guarantee outcomes and never will; honesty about risk is the whole basis of how we work. What Replanning guarantees is that your second attempt will be built on what the assessors actually said, on the current rules, and on a clear-eyed view of where your case really stands.

Frequently asked questions

Related reading: refused — your 28-day window, success rate and refusal reasons,endorsement criteria, recommendation letters, evidence (10 documents), our services & pricing and the pain points hub.

Last updated: 6 July 2026. Facts verified against GOV.UK on 6 July 2026.