In today’s video update, we will take a look at the changes affecting the tech industry due to the upcoming UK immigration changes.
The government is about to announce its plans of making some major changes in immigration system to be finalized in 2024. This blog update will focus on the challenges that these changes pose for the tech sector.
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It is also definite that the alterations will result in less migration, but they would be equally challenging to sectors that need the sponsorship system to make up for skill deficiency in jobs market.
It is the fact that the UK is suffering from a skills gap in its labour force, that’s why many tech companies go for sponsorship to fill up the gaps for the most important jobs.
The future adjustment will see a rise in the overall sponsorship salary threshold from £38,700 and the elimination of the Shortage Occupation List which lists employment roles which are scarce domestically. An option of reducing salary by 20% for these positions is provided.
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Rather than Shortage Occupation List, the Immigration Salary List has been adopted, this time containing only one-half of the roles of the former list. Although all jobs on this new list will save the salary discount of up to 20%, no tech jobs look like to be in it.
Previously, several tech positions, such as design and development engineers, IT programmers, software developers, and web design and development roles, were on the Shortage Occupation List.
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This inclusion lowered the minimum salary for sponsorship, with programmers and software developers requiring a minimum salary of £27,200.
However, since no tech roles are included in the new Immigration Salary List, as of 4th April, the minimum salary for sponsoring workers in these positions is now £38,700. The Migration Advisory Committee justifies this exclusion by citing that the median salary in the tech sector, based on data from the Office for National Statistics, exceeds £38,700, hence not qualifying for a salary discount.
Although the old businesses will have certainly offered their employees salaries that exceed the sponsorship amount, crowdfunding may represent a challenge for the startup companies since they will need to find some way to bridge the gap.
That will mean that there will be no surprise if the number of recruitment as well as the amount of expenditure will go up to the sky level. So, as a result of the UK government being the policy leader the world talent will not be interested in coming to the UK because of the new policy and the further rise in prices.
Transformation in recruitment process is probable since employers would look for other alternatives to attract and retain workers that could be done by setting up graduate schemes to help young graduates join the job market.
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