The government's scale-up visa: yesterday’s solution to today’s problem
The government means well – but it has not reckoned with the full scale of the problem facing businesses and their need for tech talent .
On 22 August this year, the UK government launched its new Scale-up Worker visa scheme, designed to make it easier for high-growth businesses in Britain to attract talent from around the world.
While this initiative means well, it does not consider the practical realities of distributed working in today’s market – and the new opportunities it opens up.
Whilst well-intentioned, it is unlikely to address the tech talent shortage in businesses successfully.
We’ll explore why this is below, but first, let’s examine how the Scale-up Worker visa programme will work.
The Scale-up Worker visa scheme
The new initiative by the Home Office will enable high-growth businesses (i.e. flourishing startups) to employ highly skilled scientists, engineers, coders and other workers from overseas by permitting these workers to receive two years’ leave to remain in the UK.
To qualify, a company will need to prove year-on-year growth of 20% or more in either turnover or staff headcount for at least three years and that it employed a minimum of ten people at the beginning of these three years.
The goal of the new visas is to offer faster, less expensive and more streamlined visa sponsorship for growing businesses seeking to attract talent from overseas.
Does it do this in practice? This short answer is "no".
One key obstacle is that firms will still need a sponsor licence – so the scheme just re-arranges it slightly instead of removing the need for some time-consuming and resource-draining admin. These licences also mean the sponsoring firm could face sponsor obligations even after the employee leaves the UK.
This is, presumably, the unintended consequence of the visa baking in a new incentive for the skilled worker in question – they will only be tied to the sponsoring firm for the first six months of their time in the UK.
This adds flexibility and options for the worker as they consider their long-term future but could add up to a retention nightmare for companies seeking to retain top talent in today’s competitive tech talent market. Under the earlier Skilled Worker visa, they could only change jobs with the permission of the immigration authorities.
There is a better option
There are other issues with the visa scheme – the sky-high requirements to qualify, for example – but an over-arching problem is central to its very idea.
The Scale-up Worker visa scheme is yesterday’s solution to today’s problem.
Instead of facilitating companies building genuinely global networks of workers connected by modern collaboration platforms, the visa scheme belongs to a world where you and your employer need to be physically located in the same place.
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In short, why spend time and resources getting someone physically in the country – when you can work with them just as effectively remotely and at a fraction of the cost in time, admin and infrastructure?
If we expand our scope to the US and the UK, there are currently 1.9 million live vacancies in software development. Only 65,000 new developers graduate every year.
That is a vast gap between demand and the capacity of the local labour market to meet it, and one that any potential visa programme is unlikely to meet.
Unless the government wants to build several whole new cities for new tech workers, its Scale-Up Worker visa scheme is not going to solve any problems conclusively.
A more realistic solution will open up access to global talent for UK firms without needless visa admin or extra costs.
The recent explosion in technical capabilities for remote working has meant Distributed’s Elastic Teams offer just that.
How Elastic Teams work
If you can successfully work with someone whose principal place of business is their spare room in suburban Britain, there is no reason you can’t do the same with someone overseas – you just need support in finding and paying talent.
Elastic Teams allow firms to recruit, onboard and deploy top talent on demand – and do it with talent anywhere in the world.
Distributed’s proprietary platform automatically connects employers with the team members they need, streamlining the process with standardised security, documentation and coding practices.
Crucially, this recruitment pool is both global and remote – meaning you don’t have to worry about sponsoring anybody’s visa, if they’ll jump ship after six months, or if you go through all the trouble of sponsoring a colleague only for things not to work out.
Elastic Teams are bespoke and built to solve your software and development issues; you do not have to over-commit to recruiting overseas talent that may have a specialism that is only appropriate for one area of your business activity.
Companies can build a talent pool that they can draw on based on their precise needs at each moment of a project’s life cycle.
So, rather than inefficiently addressing talent in one geographic location, you can cast your net worldwide to find the right talent at the right time.
This approach is a far more modern way of working that reckons with the reality of remote working, the flexibility that both tech workers and businesses require, and the digital economy's full potential.
Instead of spending the next month filling in forms for the Home Office, find out how you can access digital talent for your competitive advantage.