I've heard the exact opposite. A friend of mine is getting his PhD in the US, and he had to present a paper at a conference in Scotland. According to him, getti

I've heard the exact opposite. A friend of mine is getting his PhD in the US, and he had to present a paper at a conference in Scotland. According to him, getting the visa to even get into Scotland took months, while his US visa took less than a month to renew. He said that the experience was so bad that he wouldn't think about moving to the UK after he graduated.