Non-EU international MBA students are finding it more difficult to obtain visas to work in the UK and businesses are finding it harder to recruit the right talent, it’s been claimed.
A report by BusinessBecause found that many companies are reluctant to sponsor non-EU students to work in Britain, because it is easier to recruit overseas talent from within Europe.
There is currently an annual cap of 20,700 for non-EU skilled workers who are permitted to work in Britain. However, research by the Oxford Migration Observatory revealed that the 2014-15 ceiling was almost reached a month ahead of schedule. As a result, the Home Office agreed to lift the cap by a further 825 for April 2015, the final month of the period. But this means that 75 fewer UK visas will be available each month for the rest of this year.
The Oxford Migration Observatory said: “The trend of increased demand suggests that this year, the government is likely to start to deny visas to skilled non-EU migrants as a result of the cap.”
The cap does not affect international students who already have a UK visa. However, since the Government removed the right to stay in Britain for two years while looking for work, those who return to their home countries to conduct their job searches will be included in the figures.
The trend for foreign graduate talent to be lost by the UK was shown in figures from the Financial Times Global MBA Ranking 2015, which collates figures from the top 100 business schools around the world. Although almost nine out of 10 of international MBA graduates in the UK in 2011 were from outside the EU, only a third of those overseas graduates were still working in Britain in 2014.