The UK Government is looking for new ways to make Britain more attractive for investors, specifically in tech and machine learning – and top of the list of suggestsions is making UK visas cheaper and simpler for AI specialists.
The ‘AI Opportunities Action Plan’ was recently submitted by venture capitalist Matt Clifford – and outlines dozens of recommendations on building a more appealing landscape for big tech companies.
Artificial intelligence is of course at the forefront of the discussion in the tech world, so AI is being prioritised in the government’s growth agenda, Science and technology secretary Peter Kyle has confirmed.
Filling the gap
There’s a significant skills shortage in the UK, and getting a visa is time consuming and costs over £1,000 through the global talent visa – and Clifford is not the only one calling for changes to the process.
“I want to see the Government introduce a 10-year visa as standard for all graduates from all STEM courses in the UK.” said technology entrepreneur Dr Ewan Kirk.
“Growth and productivity have flatlined for too long, and innovation and entrepreneurship are the levers we need to pull to do something about this woeful problem”. Dr Kirk argues that we need to do more to retain the talent we build in higher education,
“We’re voluntarily brain-draining ourselves by forcing this talent out once we’ve created it – through a combination of visa restrictions, expensive applications, and a wider hostile and difficult environment we’ve created for foreign STEM students,” he said.
Since the government has laid out plans to reduce net migration to the UK, it’s likely there will also be a focus on domestic solutions to the skills shortages – which currently costs the UK an estimated £63 billion per year in missed growth opportunities, lower productivity, and inflated staffing costs.
The suggestions come alongside the government’s wider plan to stimulate tech investment and innovation, including extra protections for data centres, which are now part of the UK’s ‘critical infrastructure’.
Via Financial Times
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