- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Chandrasekhar Bhat
THE UK’s tech-visa scheme for technology workers continues to be popular among Indians.
The scheme through which Britain intends to attract global talents, allows foreign talents to work in the country without being hired by any employer.
Most of the applications in the first eight months of 2021 came from India, Nigeria, Russia and the US, The Telegraph said.
Since 2014, the total number of applications through the UK Global Talent Visa, as the scheme is officially known, has crossed 4,000.
According to Tech Nation, the official endorsing body for high level UK immigration in the technology sector, 897 visa applications were received from Indian nationals in 2020 – the highest from any country. It was followed by the United States with 410 visa requests. With 55 applications, Pakistan stood at the eighth position.
However, Indians fared poorly last year in terms of endorsement, way behind many other nations.
Only 350 visa applications of Indians were endorsed by Tech Nation, translating to an endorsement rate of 39 per cent, whereas 25 out of 55 applications of Pakistani nationals found favour from the body, recording a 45 per cent endorsement.
Applications from Chinese tech workers secured the best endorsement rate of 86 per cent, ahead of even the US which stood second with 74 per cent, according to official data.
With 1,400 applications, Asia accounted for about half of the total visa requests received by Tech Nation last year. It was followed by North America and Africa. Europe stood at the fourth spot, showing a low level of appetite from tech workers to shift their work to the UK from the rest of the continent.
