How much experience is necessary for a visa?

I am forward thinking at this point.

I would like to work and ultimately live in Japan. I need to know what experience is necessary for an engineering work visa. I know that I need a sponsor and "a bachelors degree or several or more years of experience in the required field." However, I would like to know how many years of experience are required to apply for an engineering work visa.

I am applying for an apprenticeship in vehicle mechanics in the United Kingdom, would the qualification received from that help me at all in my application for a work visa?

My last question: What working visa requires the least amount of experience/qualifications? My ultimate goal is to live in Japan so I am happy to do whatever job will get me there quickest.

Thank you for your time.

If you want to get a job without a bachelor's degree, it needs to be something that doesn't require a degree like a chef, artist, etc. Usually 10+ years of experience are needed, I believe.

Remember that Japan has its own labour force; it won't bring foreigners in on work visas unless the foreigners have special skills.

You will also want to learn the language - a Japanese company is unlikely to hire you if you cannot communicate with them or their customers.

English teaching is often an easy way to enter Japan, provided you meet the requirements; however, it is usually a short-term thing and isn't really a career path.

Plenty of vehicle mechanics in Japan. Doubtful you'd get a visa for that.

you have to have language skill to work as car mechanics, because they do a lot of legal paper works to maintain the customer's cars.
even though you have a skill to fix cars, it means almost nothing as a business in Japan.

Listen to me: Get your bachelor's degree. It's really worth it. Then get a job with a prominent automotive supplier or OEM in the U.K with an office in Japan. Then after two or three years you have two options: either try to get transferred to their Japan branch, or start applying directly to jobs in Japan.

Of course you have more chances if you also speak Japanese at N2 or N1, but today there are many foreign automotive companies in Japan that do not ask for full proficiency. But you do need the special skill set to compensate for that, and if you don't have at least a bachelor's degree and relevant working experience, you can be very sure they won't even look at your resume.

Software/Hardware/Electronics Engineers, Technical Program Managers and Industrial Designers are always in high demand.

Trust me, I'm in the automotive industry and already walked that path.

Thank you for the help. So I need to start looking at getting a bachelors degree then. The only problem with that was that I had heard that it was expensive but I'll give it a shot. Thanks.

University is expensive but the fact that you don't start to pay the student loan back until you are making a half-decent amount means even a lot of poor people can afford to get their degrees. Yes the fees are unjustifiably high but you would have to be in a fairly unique situation as a young person with probably no existing debts or life commitments to be able to genuinely say "I can't afford it, university isn't for me". Just go for university for automotive engineering and you won't have to deal with the consequences of such a big gamble later on.

Also get good at Japanese, like really good. Are will know more about this than me but I know an engineer who came over here and ended up making a lot of money translating technical documents or something like that for Nissan. Survival Japanese won't get you these positions, start studying now and don't stop even after you land your first job. Native English speaker + GENUINE spoken and written Japanese proficiency + another relevant skill (engineering, journalism, law, whatever) = highly employable.

Thanks for the help. I have some "Teach yourself" books and CDs for Japanese but I could start looking for actual Japanese language courses too, thanks for the advice. I am going to go to college to get a level 3 diploma in electrical engineering and will the go on to do it at University for the Bachelors degree. Then I'll get a few years of experience in before applying for the visa to Japan (after finding a sponsor).

Thanks for all the help.

My last question: What working visa requires the least amount of experience/qualifications? My ultimate goal is to live in Japan so I am happy to do whatever job will get me there quickest.

Teaching English is the easiest way to get a working visa here. Officially, every job in Japan requires their employee to have at least a bachelor degree. However, there are some private language schools (eikawas) that do hire native speakers who don't have a university degree. These are hard to find, and many of them only offer part time work, but they do exist. The wages and working conditions are much lower than those for native speakers who have a university degree. If you have a degree, it is much easier to find a decent job. To teach English here you aren't required to know Japanese (although obviously it helps a lot to study it) unlike every other industry, which requires foreigners to know Japanese at a minimum level of JLPT N2 (fluent speaker). I'd advise you to go down the teaching English route.

Thanks for the help. I have some "Teach yourself" books and CDs for Japanese but I could start looking for actual Japanese language courses too, thanks for the advice.

It's pretty much impossible to teach yourself Japanese to the point of getting to an N2 level, which is the minimum requirement for most Japanese companies who hire foreigners. You need to study Japanese at a language school or at university, full time, for at least two years to get the level of proficiency that most employers require.