[carlsborg]

If its anything like the prior Tier 1 program, I'd say it would be run very efficiently. (Time between applying to the approval letter == 2 or 3 weeks iirc for me.)

Its certainly one of the most startup-friendly visas out there, and despite the recent football press, the UK is a world class country.

- Mainly there are no earning requirements like the Tier 1 program had, so you can use your time to drive an innovative startup instead of chasing the relatively high (for this geography) earnings on every renewal.

- Indefinite Leave to Remain in 3 or 5 years (this is the equivalent of a Green Card) and passport 2 years later.

- And from the website:

With a Global Talent visa you can:

    choose how long your visa is for, up to 5 years
    be an employee, self-employed and a director of a company
    change or stop doing your job without telling the Home Office
    bring your partner and children with you as your ‘dependants’, if they’re eligible
    travel abroad and return to the UK

- There are no language or minimum salary eligibility requirements.

Bonus advice: Consider a lower cost city Edinburgh, Bristol, Newcastle, Brighton, and chase the startup dream rather than working at larger company.

[liberalbias998]

As someone who lives in the UK; I wish our country and our businesses would train and educate our own residents better.

Also I wish our Government ever considered reciprocity for the people here; since the only places we can easily go now are England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Having said that we do need talent; best of luck to applicants.

[cosmodisk]

I honestly tried... Had a team of people with various skills,needs, and motivations. I not only encouraged to use the available opportunities within the business but also persuaded the CEO to invest in continuos training, heck, I even allocated time during work hours to do the learning at their own pace no questions asked. Nobody has gone beyond bare minimum,even when they had a chance to double their income in 2-3 years. So if people on relatively modest salaries won't do it,I don't know how else to push for it...

[disgruntledphd2]

And the Republic of Ireland, due to the common travel area.

[hkt]

As someone who lives in the UK, I would like to point out the only affordable city on your list is Newcastle. The rest are in the midst of a crisis of earnings to rent/mortgage costs nightmare.

[voisin]

Everyone from any reasonably sized city in any reasonably developed country seems to be saying the same thing at the moment!

[RugnirViking]

hah - although that is true, there do exist cheaper cities and more expensive cities. It's why many folks interested in startups are choosing places like Austin, Boulder, Detriot etc over NY or san fransisco.

A reccomendation from me would be sheffield - great university and good startup culture as well as relatively affordable leases

[illirik]

A house in Boulder costs a million dollars nowadays! Maybe cheaper than San Francisco, but Boulder is up to Seattle prices

[hogFeast]

"crisis" in UK terms...London is moderately expensive in international terms but has come down significantly over the past ten years as price growth levelled off, Bristol is rising but still pretty cheap (and it is rising because so many companies are moving there), Brighton is expensive but there are lots of other commuter options, Edinburgh (the city I am most familiar with) is not expensive...it is up a lot because of AirBnb, HMO conversions, and the fairly strong economy...but it isn't expensive in absolute terms (you can rent a nice two bedroom place in the city centre for £1k/month) and it is nowhere on the map in relative terms. Buying is a bit more complicated...but, right now, renting in the UK makes more sense.

One thing to bear in mind too, places like Edinburgh and Bristol have huge gaps...you can easily find somewhere in Edinburgh that is £400/month for one person, the area won't be great, I have lived in those places and the crime is usually drug-related so it isn't actually too bad (nothing compared to London, nowhere close) but there are options.

So this is a post about people coming to the UK to do, relatively, high paid work...this is nothing like most big cities in the US, Tokyo, Switzerland, Toronto, Sydney or Melbourne...London is pretty expensive, but it has come down a lot and isn't a "crisis" imo (if you don't mind living outside London and commuting...I will admit Essex is quite terrible though). As an example, lots of people coming here from HK, and (from what I have heard) they can't believe how cheap property is here.

[cosmodisk]

London is absurd place when it comes to costs. It's very similar to NY, but then to find a tech job that would pay £100K+ is virtually unheard-of except some niche jobs in financial sector or super-ultra-specialised in tech companies. The same job with Google pays 2-3 times less than in the US..

[da39a3ee]

> The same job with Google pays 2-3 times less than in the US..

Is that the case? (a) How does Google justify that internally? (b) Doesn't it cause a huge amount of ill-feeling internally? (c) If that is so why are there people elsewhere in this thread saying that FAANG jobs pay very well in London?

[digianarchist]

People transfer but whilst your base salary is adjusted, RSUs and options generally stay the same.

[boghy8823]

Thank you! We are actually considering Edinburgh as we visited two years and just loved it.