Top scientists turning down UK jobs over 'tax on talent', says Wellcome boss

Very stupid of the UK, but I guess it shows that the UK really doesn't want any immigrants unless they're very rich. I do wonder, however, why the companies that want to hire these top scientists, aren't paying all these fees for them. If they really want to recruit these people, then paying all necessary visa costs should be part of the job offer.

By way of comparison, getting a job like this here in Japan costs 3000 yen (about USD $19 right now) for the visa fee. Perhaps that's why this country is one of the "leading scientific nations" (according to the article): it's really, really easy to bring qualified professionals here, at least as far as immigration procedures and fees are concerned.

The UK collectively decided to fuck itself into oblivion, repeatedly, for more than a decade. My only hope is that in a hundred years the sun will still rise over Avebury on the solstice, the white horse will still leap over uffington, and some miserable subsistence farmer, desperately searching for nonexistent rotten potatoes in the chalky soil will one morning look out through the rain, see the wind moving through beech trees on the crest of the chiltern hills, hear a red kite flying overhead, and feel a rush of warm acid through their blood in absolute certainty that the land is so much more permanent than the rotting bones of a million dead politicians, crushed underfoot

My BiL is currently doing his PhD in CS(AI/ML)[1] at a University in the Midlands.

Despite the scholarship/funding, he had to pay a rather heavy NHS fee for my him, my sister and the kids, and this is before the increase.

I keep urging him to to move to the US, he will be done by next year and I think don't think that even if he were to win the global talent visa after that, (and pay the NHS fee again) he would ever earn a salary good enough to cover that, since UK salaries are so low.

He's hesitant, but I don't believe I will have to push hard, if such policies continue.

So stupid, that they (UK) attracted talent, paid for it, and yet might lose it.

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[1]: He tried to explain it to me, it's something about audio/speech processing and using AI to do something about that, the funding is in a medical context, iirc.

I feel so sorry for the UK research community. All this nonsense derives directly from the Conservative party's mania over Europe and their researchers' programs and pipelines of talent are impacted as a result.

Erasmus, free movement of EU workers, access to healthcare on EU terms, the ability to zip back and forth quickly and easily across the sea to collaborate with peers, all evaporated.

It was quite possible to have objections to the way the EU did things, and reform them, without leaving. But sadly the UK chose Brexit. An absolute tragedy.

Tomorrow is UK general election.

Hopefully things turn around because the last 14 years of conservatives/tories have been not awesome (unless you’re wealthy, own property or are old).

i think this made getting a visa for Spain more expensive because the fee is reciprocated for the British