[Nursie]

Yup, this is a massive trope in the UK. "We need to import more people from wherever, there's a real shortage of software people!"

No, there's a shortage of software people who are firstly willing to work for the £30K you seem to think is reasonable and secondly (implied by the pay on offer) willing to put up with being treated as if they are a junior, unskilled office worker.

Which is why those with any ambition become contractors and consultants, or leave the county...

[burntoutfire]

> Yup, this is a massive trope in the UK. "We need to import more people from wherever, there's a real shortage of software people!"

Following that logic, there must be a massive shortage of CEOs and high-level executives (given their salaries) - let's import them from Romania and significantly lower the costs across the economy!

[theriddlr]

Only internationals graduating from UK universities qualify for a work visa with a £30k job. There is a real shortage of software engineers. The minimum pay for a non-EU software engineer coming into the UK was as high as £50k last year in April. It's only got lowered to £30k last month because of Brexit.

It's the EU workers who are willing to work for £30k because non-EUs need to earn more than £35k after 5 years to apply for settlement in the UK.

[spratzt]

When I graduated it was said that if your were good enough to get a decent degree then you were wasting yourself in IT.

It was true then and it remains true to-day.

[Nursie]

IT? Sure. IT is the guys that support the office printer and your outlook login. Useful people but it's hardly rocket science.

Software development contracting and consultancy is a very different matter and can easily get you into the top one or two percent of incomes in the UK.

The fact that a lot of small and medium businesses in the UK attempt to treat (and pay) the one as the other is part of the reason they're always bleating about not being able to find staff.