I feel like to answer your question you should be looking at the people going to the UK, instead of the ones leaving.

Either way London is still one of the best European cities for tech.

Yes, plenty of people. In fact, 2022 was the highest recorded immigration in history [1].

The fact remains UK has one of the best university systems and best opportunities for skilled work outside of the US. Yeah the Tory gov is trying their best to destroy the country but this kind of institutional bias is hard to wreck. It's very similar to the US - which has an amazing university system that continues to prop up the economy over the long term, despite how destructive/insane the government policies are.

I'd also argue that for lots of immigrants, things like the NHS and general safety net make the UK far more appealing than the US. Also if you're from a former British colony, it feels a lot more familiar - so you see large numbers of east asian nationals who prefer to immigrate to the UK over the US.

On top of all that, it can also be significantly harder to get a visa to live in the US.

1: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06...

I feel like I see proportionally more South Asians in the UK than the US. In the US, I see proportionally more East and Southeast Asians.

In the UK, “Asian” (in common vernacular) usually refers to descendants of India/Pakistan/Bangladesh/Nepal/etc.

In the US, “Asian” usually refers to descendants of Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese/Thai/Filipino/etc.

I dunno. Where my kid went to high school, "asian" usually meant people of Indian heritage. An anecdote only, but.

What pops into my mind is that the US is closer to what you would call east Asia than it is to India, and, of course, Britain has particularly strong historical ties to India/Pakistan etc. So that might also be a factor.

Yes, got my geography wrong. I meant South/South East not East, updated my comment. Basically the former British colonies.

It's a lagging indicator. A lot of those South Asians tend to be 2nd or 3rd generation whose heritage is from the Doab and Mirpur who came to work in factories like the Michelin tyre factory in Southall, the Ford factory in Dagenham, and the textile mills up in Birmingham and North Yorkshire in the 1950s-70s. South Asian immigration to the UK slowed down by the 90s when America and Canada became easier for South Asians to emigrate to.

The immigration stats for 2022 are skewed by Ukrainian refugees and HKers fleeing to UK.

Still, there must be many reasons why asylum seekers in Calais are trying to get to the UK, when they passed through a number of EU countries first.

It feels like asylum seekers might not have the best information about the "best" place to settle, maybe they all think the UK is it, or a lot of them are going there because they have a contact (friend/relative) who can get them settled. I'd be curious to see what percentage end up where in Europe as they cross the continent, to see how many of them go all the way to Calais to try to cross to the UK.

For college educated and working class South Asians, the UK isn't a top migration priority anymore. In the UK, Wages are lower, prices much higher, and immigration much harder than to Canada or even Australia.

In 80s and early 90s Punjabi movies and songs "Inglaand" may have been popular, but since the 2000s "Kaneda" has the goto choice.

Most South Asians you tend to see now are there for educational tourism and will eventually move to Canada or back to India, or are from business/political backgrounds looking for a backup passport should they be prosecuted for crimes (eg. Nirav Modi, Lalit Modi, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, Vijay Mallya), though even the US ranks higher for them but they wouldn't be allowed in the US due to background checks or past criminal records (eg. Lalit Modi's attempted stint as a coke dealer at Duke). That said, they definetly send their families to the States. For example, Amit Shah's sisters live in Schaumburg IL and Imran Khan's sis is in the Tri-Valley.

No. It is absolute madness to go to the UK for running a startup when the US exists.

US is the greatest place for entrepreneurship and changing the world. Nothing even comes close.

There is a tangible difference in the air.

> when the US exists.

I don't think you realise how hard it is to move to the US for work.

The UK's immigration system is notoriously difficult for skilled workers to migrate under too in many, many cases so not like the UK system is setup to take advantage of this at all.

Speaking as someone with experience of both UK and US immigrant work visa systems in the software industry, the US provides significantly more visa options and paths to permanent residency, especially to folks who didn't come to the country to study first. It doesn't help matters either that in most cases equivalent software roles pay better in the US too.

i'm sure that was Brexit. now if you earn a high wage, work for a big company that has big time lawyers. you will have your skilled visa in about 2 weeks depending on the country.

let's not start on the nightmare called h1b.

yeah current cost of living in the uk, is kinda fucked but us isn't faring better. if you only look at raw salary number then yeah US is ahead, but once you start factoring other things - uk / us are on par.

Not really sure I agree - particularly for skilled engineers. The salary gap at the mid to high-end between the UK and US is large right now, even at FAANG-grade firms. I have recent first hand experience of watching US based FAANG employees who were otherwise keen to do it turn down an offer to work in London for a year due to the drop in salary and living conditions.

The "other things" aren't what they once were either - I'd take my US private health care over the current state of the UK's NHS any day of the week right now. The wait times for even basic treatments are insane, and thats before we consider the wider state of the UK economy and public services.

> you will have your skilled visa in about 2 weeks depending on the country.

You can't really generalize like this in my experience - there are so many individual factors - just where you were born is going to affect how long your visa takes in many countries. The systems also vary enormously, from opaque hard to navigate like UK/US to open points based like Canada or Australia etc. It takes far longer than two weeks just waiting for an H1B decision result too in most cases.

It can be pain in the butt to get your wife to the USA if you marry a foreigner! Source: am American & married a foreigner.

And even harder (nearly impossible) for anything else than work or study, e.g. if you are a consultant or want to start a company.

Some people don't want to live in the US.

A UK Tier 2 Skilled Worker visa takes 3-8 weeks to go through; the US EB-3 visa wait time is typically measured in years (more than 10 for some countries it seems).

That alone is a big reason people move to countries other than the US for tech work. An empoyer can wait a month or two for a visa to come through, they can't wait years. I'd love to work in the US, but it needs multi-year planning and for lots of stuff out of your control to line up.

Can a British citizen just apply to a US company and they'll sort it out if you get the job?

Or does the applicant have to navigate the visa process themselves?

(I'm a Brit who's always had one eye on the US... becoming two eyes lately.)

Very difficult the way you’re describing it but there is an easy-ish approach: take a UK based job with an American company (e.g: Facebook) and then after you’ve worked there for a couple of years, ask to relocate to the US. There’s a special visa for that situation (L-1) which is very attainable and provides a path to citizenship.

It's getting harder to get an L1-B visa. Many applications are returned with a RFE notice or outright denied.

The company typically pays the lawyer firm who do everything and guide you through the whole process. They also file most of the paperwork

Speaking of which, what's the move like? Can a company sponsor a green card if they like the candidate enough? How does this work?

Yes, I'm one of those people you're talking about.

afaik the best approach seems to be to join a US-based company in the UK then ask them nicely to apply for a visa for you after a year. Then you're in the H1-B lottery.

AFAIK you need a visa first, most people I know that did this (myself included) first had a visa first: H1, L1, O1, etc. Then their employer sponsored a green card.

H1-B is the most common for tech workers, unfortunately due to quotas it can be pretty hard to get. Even if you get the job, your petition could be denied randomly because there were too many applications for the year.

I already have L1, but my employer won't sponsor green card. What are my options?

New employer using a different non-immigrant visa or EB-1.

IIRC L1 is not transferrable, so your best bet would be to try to snag an H1B at a different employer. It's much easier to do while in the US, so I'd ride out the L1 and apply for jobs between Nov and February to get in the H1B paperwork in for April 1st and hopefully get in the lottery. If it doesn't work on year, rinse and repeat. Depending on your occupation, O1 is a possibility, one of my friends switched jobs and went from L1 to O1.

The alternative if you're not married is to get your GC through your marriage if you have a US partner.

Yes, if you work on an H-1 your company can sponsor you for a GC. Many do.