nicely explained, +1alzs- said:Age is crucial in Express Entry. If you are 32 and she is 27, it is a 15 point difference. The day after you turn 33, if you have not received an invitation, you will drop another 5 points.
If you have 3+ years of work experience, 1 more will not make any difference.
My suggestion is wait until your wife completes 3 years of work experience and then apply with her as primary applicant.
In short:
- improve IELTS - no go since you are already considering top scores
- learn some French and take the TEF - doable but it takes time (that can get you up to 22 points)
- improve education (if you think you won't be able to get an invitation in 2017, considering taking anther post-graduation, like a 1-year MBA)
- improve your wife's work experience
I will tell you my story. Me and my husband decide to move to Canada around August 2016. He has a MBA and I was finishing mine. Because he is 2 years older than me, we applied under my name. We both scored top on IELTS. Still, because of our age (I am 36), I was afraid our points would not be enough (my benchmark was 2015-2016, when the lowest CRS score to get an invitation was 452). So I started taking private lessons of French, a language I was familiar with but hadn't spoke it in over 15 years. Took the TEF and secured another 14 points. Finally got my ECA in March 2017, applied and got an invitation. So from deciding to move to actually applying to Express Entry it took us 6-7 months.
That's CIC link with detailed scoring.
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/express-entry/grid-crs.asp#a4