A new visa that will allow UK tech startups to hire entire teams

http://www.businessinsider.com/uk-tech-team-visa-hailed-revolutionary-2015-10?nr_email_referer=1&utm_content=emailshare&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_campaign=BI%20Select%20Mondays%202015-10-19&utm_term=Business%20Insider%20Select

by bpolania • 11 years ago

55 61 11 years ago

businessinsider.com

peteretep• 11 years ago

Current visa requires evidence of:

* Publications

* Keynote speaker at global conference

* Won or nominated for a recognized Tech award

* Major Open Source project(s) maintained

Peroni6• 11 years ago

Not quite. If any of the above exist, it can help with your application but none of the items you list are required.

winst0n• 11 years ago

It still sounds very complicated. Doesn't the UK need talented people? Or are they getting enough from mainland Europe?

lifeisstillgood6• 11 years ago

Oh god, I am beginning to feel kinship with Donald Trump and Ron Paul - I want to tell my government to stop interfering.

TechCityUK is a government quango?? I thought they were some kind of over-funded startup/charity. Give me small government or give me death.

Oh no, I've been reading American comments on here too long.

Edit: I was going to delete as not constructive, but genuinely this was a surprise, and not a good one. TechcityUK looks and feels like a well funded startup with great government connections but no business plan. I did kind of assume they were gov connected if only because they can do events with government ministers, but an actual funded quango just annoys me - they just got in the way the last time I visited (GDS/CCS roadshow, where the GDS staff and I just exchanged emails but I still somehow got on the TechcityUK mailing list - and hang on they keep trying to charge me - a lot - annually for the pleasure of funding them as a taxpayer. What kind of quango is this?

Aaargh, pass me the shotgun Mabel, I'm gonna gits me a revenoo man.

stuaxo• 11 years ago

Yep, at the same time as useful stuff is continually being unfunded and privatised we get stuff like this.

genmon4• 11 years ago

What are they trying to charge you for? I didn't know they had any non-free programmes, although I assume they do look for corporate sponsorship

lifeisstillgood6• 11 years ago

Well that would be it then - but it was sold as "joining" I just smiled and nodded.

lifeisstillgood6• 11 years ago

So, sniping from the sidelines, whilst fun, is not constructive nor man in the arena valuable so, in a debate with just myself, here is my five point plan for what my tax money should be wasted on

1. TechCityUK seems to have the usual, born out of a politicians excitement, mission to "bring together and ignite a spark". Now in our hyper connected, social media addicted, Meetup fueled entrepreneur scene, a government agency to bring us together is just laughable. As a case in point I have now been to I think three events at techCity and not one did I go to because of techCity - two were meetup.com and one was the GDS mailing list. Now perhaps they have great office space really cheap (it is a nice office slap bang in (expensive!) central London) but as I am supposed to go to a bootstrap business Meetup tonight above a pub in Kings X (Google Charlie Irish and apologise from me I might not make it as usual), as they manage without government subsidies I suspect the role techCity has is ... Redundant to the max.

2. Immigration. Oh let's get involved in that quagmire. I have actually sued the Home Office (back when we had a Home Office) to get a coder back in the country. Worked for us for 18 months then told to fuck off, we can find a Brit to do the job. Turned out we couldn't.

So here is my immigration suggestion. If I have a foreign coder working for me, and you tell her to fuck off out the country, you can either pay me compensation while I go find another British worker, and train them up, or you can fund her for six months in ForeignLand while she sets up a home office.

In short if you don't want foreign workers in our country dear government, paying taxes and doing value added work, then you can fund the difference between why, for heavens sake, I cannot find a British born coder for love nor money and why there are dozens of East Europeans with Maths degrees out of their bottoms wandering around London.

I may not have a coherent view there but I am definitely blaming government for it.

3. Open Source and procurement. Ok this is a bit of my own bugbear (http://www.oss4gov.org/manifesto) but the CCS/GDS hub is doing a fine job, and needs to be cloned and passed around local and regional and the rest of central government. Whilst there may be difficulties with actual cloning, expanding their team and remit is more viable.

So firstly we need to make open source the default for all new government software development (it's more or less there). Then the default for existing services - this is fundamentally because we are now having our government run by software and like our laws we should be able to read it. It also means there will be massive massive opportunity to funnel the huge government spend out to an Eco-system of smaller developer communities who will do what TechcityUK cannot dream of.

And before or as part of that, we need to introduce acorn-like OSS projects - take expert civil servants, give them good project managers and funding and get them to seed OSS projects, hackathons, OJEU announcements, whatever. Start a project on GitHub, because the people we want to attract to working on government projects are not the kind of people who will do an RFT first.

4. Move it out of the South East. I have spent 40 years here on and off. It's not nice, it's just powering along. But it's sucking the rest of the country dry. Take those techCity funds, and rent out corrotated iron sheds in country lanes all over the land, and hand them to young idiots with an idea. And give them train passes to travel down to London to go to Charlie Irish's meetups to meet old idiots.

Have the gumption to directly fund and support young people with a vague idea that starting a business is a good thing. Have them attached to idiots like me who will ask difficult questions every month or six weeks and just accept that 90% will show no return - expect for the best return of trained experienced entrepreneurs.

5. There is far more in the scope of government paying for software from a vibrant community of open developers. How to marry that to high quality, tested, regulated code is a challenge and one Inwould love to discuss in detail.

Anyway, must get some shuteye so I am ready for a day of napping at my desk.

spacecowboy_lon5• 11 years ago

So you'd be happy with an industry training Levey which is what we had pre Thatcher.

Though I must admit you sound more like the traditional moaner who wont pay for training and wants some one else to pay/do that for them.

genmon4• 11 years ago

So just a small point because I think the names cause some confusion -- the organisation "Tech City UK" is based out of a small, desks-only office somewhere near Moorgate. Used to be a similar set up just north of the Old St roundabout. It's low key and really not an events space. My feeling is that Tech City UK is a lean, good value organisation.

There's also the neighbourhood loosely called "Tech City" which is Old St and east London generally, but I'm not sure how much that name has currency any longer. When it launched with that name - loads of fanfare, trumpets, press etc - Google Campus opened at the same time, as an events and co-working space. It's fancy. So for a lot of people Google Campus == Tech City. Separate entities tho. You may have been to meetups hosted there or somewhere like it?

And I have to say, a lot of my current goodwill towards Google is based on them opening Google Campus. Exactly the right intervention to catalyse the neighbourhood at just the right time.

On your point (4) -- Tech City UK's big focus right now is on the north of England. Tech North opened a month or so back to promote and help out, getting the startup ecosystem to properly take root across those cities.

rjsw3• 11 years ago

Take those techCity funds, and rent out corrotated iron sheds in country lanes all over the land, and hand them to young idiots with an idea.

You may think that everyone outside the M25 has straw in their hair but things are not quite that bad, I have running water and an inside toilet at my house.

maffydub2• 11 years ago

"Turned out we couldn't [find a Brit to do the job]."

You genuinely couldn't find one? What kind of skills were you looking for?

smackay• 11 years ago

"positive rebranding of the Exceptional Talent visa scheme" pretty much sums this up - spin on a lackluster program. Revolutionary - hardly.

Want to do something revolutionary or at least something that might make a difference, pull in teams from under-developed countries, train them up by putting them in top tier companies specifically not as cheap labour (a mini-YCombinator for want of a better description), then let them go do their thing.

eru2• 11 years ago

Or just auction of the visas to the highest bidders. Or let in anyone who surpasses the average native in education (or tax-paying power).

scrollaway3• 11 years ago

Or just auction of the visas to the highest bidders.

Yes, let's have money decide who gets or doesn't get into the country, who can and cannot get hired from abroad. Isn't legal bribery great...

Or let in anyone who surpasses the average native in education

And how do you determine that?

kspaans• 11 years ago

I came to the UK from Canada to work in the software industry. My employer sponsored a Tier 2 General visa for me (cost me, and them, and took 1+ months). A friend of mine got into the UK under the "Youth Mobility Visa". His process was shorter and simpler, but AFAICT he can't renew his visa once it expires.

I don't consider myself exceptionally talented so I don't think a Tier 1 would have been right for me, but I wonder how many software tech (as opposed to sciencey/businessey/researchey) people get into the UK with that visa?

Peroni6• 11 years ago

Very few. Seven in total last year I believe. I hired an exceptional Data Scientist from Moscow for a London based startup on a Tier 2 visa. He had a PhD plus a number of years of commercial experience and was being offered an outstanding salary. Technically, he could have qualified for a Tier 1 visa but the process involved was a nightmare. It was genuinely easier to bring him in on a Tier 2.

spacecowboy_lon5• 11 years ago

Some commonwealth countries have special visas for younger people - its why you see so many Australian and NZ bar staff.

Peroni6• 11 years ago

Any change to the current Tier 1 structure is a welcome change however, until they reveal the definitive qualification criteria, I won't be reading too much into this. The Tier 1 visa process in the UK is a logistical nightmare which is why only 7 of TechCity's allocation of 200 Tier 1 visas were utilised in the first place.

makeitsuckless• 11 years ago

As far as I can tell, that still makes it harder to get into the UK than many other countries in the EU.

klipt2• 11 years ago

Yeah, the UK cannot deny entry to EU citizens, no matter how unskilled, so to make the number of immigrants more politically palatable, they're cracking down on non-EU citizens, no matter how skilled.

Easiest way into the UK is probably to naturalize in some other EU country first. I wonder where is easiest? Germany, Belgium, Ireland?

m-i-l• 11 years ago

Portugal has a Golden Visa scheme, which "gives foreign investors who spend 500,000 euros on a property ... the right to live in Portugal ... They are also free to travel around all the EU countries ... and after six years they can apply for Portuguese citizenship" according to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26636829 .

DrJokepu• 11 years ago

In fact, if you're a non-EU national, the easiest way to get into the UK is to marry (or be in a civil partnership or in a long-term relationship with) a (non-British) EU national. The paperwork is simple, cheap, and although it's not exactly fast you get a temporary certificate within a week or so.

djhn• 11 years ago

Some of the highly English-speaking countries, like the Nordics, might be a good option.

Better act fast though, before the UK "brexits" the EU. I have no idea how difficult it would be for people(/me) to keep their(/my) address and company in the UK in that scenario.

cfontes• 11 years ago

I am Brazilian/Italian citizen and it took 11 years to get the Italian one. Definitely not one of the easiest ones.

But it's doable...

mollmerx3• 11 years ago

Malta has the reputation of being the easiest to acquire EU citizenship.

It's unlikely that Germany would be one of the easiest, as it requires 8 years of permanent residence to become a citizen. After living in Germany for 8 years it's unlikely you'd still want to move to the UK anyway, as you would have learnt the language and have come to appreciate the higher quality of living.

mlamat• 11 years ago

Can the team leave the employer for another one, or is this another case of indentured servitude with a funny name?

Peroni6• 11 years ago

Technically, yes however employer 2 would still need to jump through significant hoops as the individual visas would still need to be transferred. It's easier but not easy.

andy_ppp• 11 years ago

I'm not sure why the article focuses on hiring people from Silicon Valley... Mostly people hire externally to the UK to reduce wages but in CA wages are roughly double what they are in London, let alone the rest of the U.K.

madaxe_again3• 11 years ago

We hire outside of the UK to have as broad a talent pool as possible. People cost what they cost.

What this article is actually about is tier ii visas being gutted to pander to the right wing anti-immigration lobby.

Tech employees are jumping ship from this country left right and centre already - the EU is important both as a hiring pool and a market, and when the UK leaves, so will a big chunk of the tech industry.

sjclemmy• 11 years ago

..when the UK leaves...

Really? You feel that strongly that the people of the UK will vote to leave? Whilst there is vocal support for leaving, there are also a lot of level headed people who understand the benefits of being part of the EU.

UK-AL• 11 years ago

I would absousbly love for immigration to open to anyone who has job offer over 65k+. That would eliminate the idea of immigration for cheap workers

What I hate is specific targeting of tech industry professionals.

noja• 11 years ago

Good to see they are finally addressing the root cause of the problem.

spacecowboy_lon5• 11 years ago

If you aquihire the team you can you do it as an intra company transfer?

Peroni6• 11 years ago

You still need a visa. It's slightly easier but then you assume that aquihiring is straightforward, which it isn't.

A new visa that will allow UK tech startups to hire entire teams

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