The Budget: Sunak pushes for high-skilled migration with scale-up visas
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a push for “high-skilled migration” to attract the best global talent.
The government’s plans include a new Scale-up Visa, launching in spring 2022, that will help the UK’s fastest-growing businesses to access overseas talent.
The visa will be open to applicants who pass the language proficiency requirement and have a high-skilled job offer from an eligible business with a salary of at least £33,000. This will then entitle them to a fast-track visa.
Hoping to “modernise” immigration, the policy hopes to attract talent in academia, science, research and technology from around the world.
There will also be a Global Talent visa reform, allowing holders of international prizes and winners of scholarships and programmes for early promise to automatically qualify for a visa.
On top of this, a new Global Business Mobility visa will be launched by spring 2022 for overseas businesses to establish a presence or transfer staff to the UK.
From a business perspective, the government plans to provide practical support to small firms that are using the visa system for the first time, making the system easier to use and removing administrative barriers to talent.
Building on the government’s Future Fund, the government will commit £375m to introduce Future Fund: Breakthrough, a new direct co-investment product to support the scale up of the most innovative, R&D-intensive businesses.
The British Business Bank will take equity in funding rounds of over £20 million led by private investors to ensure these companies can access the capital they need to grow and bring prosperity to communities across the UK.
Finally, the Budget makes a call for evidence on whether and how more UK companies should be able to access Enterprise management incentives (EMI) to help them recruit and retain the talent they need to scale up.