[ig1]

It's not really anything new, you can use the current Tier-1 visa for this purpose.

There's a Tier-1 entrepreneur visa which requires £200k investment, however most professional software developers will qualify for the Tier-1 general visa which doesn't require investment.

The general Tier-1 uses a points based system which takes into account education, english language fluency and past earnings. With the Tier-1 general visa you can stay in the UK for up-to 2 years (if you're not making money after 2 years and don't have investment, you might not be able to renew though)