UK opens up 'high-potential individual route' for tech worker immigration | Hacker News Reader

UK opens up 'high-potential individual route' for tech worker immigration

theregister.com

5 pointsrntn9 comments

Despite the standard HN position (Brexit Bad, Tories Bad, everything Bad) - this is a really good policy.

Last year, UK net migration was up a lot (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati...) mostly driven by student visas, mostly driven by India and Nigeria. This is a good thing for the UK - a country which already specialises in Education. We make money for each student, companies get the pick of talent, it's good for soft power and gives optionality. It's also morally right that we offer legal ways for people to move to the UK.

Boris is bad yes, but he brought back the two year post graduation visa (under May you had 3 months to find a job - I saw this up close and it simply wasn't enough time for any specialisation). This is also a really good thing.

Commentators below talking about 'going remote' but this is relevant for SWE and some professional services. Roles in labs, R&D, education, media, law are almost always hybrid which means you can't hire overseas.

What's important is that most of these people would have got into the UK anyway on the points-based systems if they spoke a bit of English and worked in an in-demand field. What this policy essentially does is say is that if you went to these Universities then you don't need to be a SWE and you don't need a certain level of English. I can't see how this isn't a good thing.

And by the way, we already do this for people later in their career. https://www.gov.uk/global-talent

Of course, this policy could have been achieved in the EU as well, so this does not reduce the badness of Brexit, or the current Tory leadership which is in power solely through lies.

All good points. I think the list of universities is rather reductive, but I'd rather have this policy than nothing at all.

Not everyone shares your enthusiasm. Yes, this is good for foreigners and corporations but it comes at the expense of native workers. it suppresses wages(often times immigrants are willing to do the same jobs at lower salaries), as well as makes it more difficult for native workers to find a job due to increased competition.

I really don't know what you're talking about. How are a few hundred Harvard graduates going to meaningfully 'suppress wages' in the UK? If anything, they'll actually increase demand for goods and services in the UK - which is going to push up wages.

I'm willing to entertain the argument that thousands of low-skilled migrants out compete indigenous low-skilled labour and push down wages. But that obviously doesn't apply in this context.

If anything, US DE and JP workers would actually need higher salaries to justify their coming to, and staying in, the UK.

I don't mind whether or not people 'share my enthusiasm'.

Smart companies will go remote and cut out the middle man, which amusingly the UK gov is discouraging as well.

This is better than nothing, but being in the EU was still better. Sigh.

If the goal was to attract EU techies this is almost entirely useless.

There's only 3 EU universities on the list in the first place, and the only German one (LMU) is known for humanities, while the other Munich University (TUM), which ranks much higher for computer science and engineering, doesn't even enter the list.

And this visa is still almost 2 grand in fees and "health surcharges", in addition to "maintenance funds".

I'm not convinced this will change much at all, but I don't think that was the purpose anyway.

Yeah, fair. This is more global in nature and could have been done while we were in the EU, too.

The broader point is this is a salve for the skills shortage caused by leaving the EU.

You've also perfectly illustrated why basing this on an arbitrary top 50 is stupid in the extreme, but this is government we have.

Previous discussion here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31557179

Reply on news.ycombinator.com