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

by kmlx 4y ago

devoutsalsa 4y ago
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.
giobox 4y ago
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. The UK for years could often rely on EU migration (freedom of movement rules etc) to a large extent to provide for its migrant workforce needs. Brexit closed this avenue completely and the UK hasn't yet built an immigration system remotely appropriate for its needs to replace it, and efforts to do so are of course hugely politically contentious.
- dzonga 4y ago
  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.
  - giobox 4y ago
    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.
atemerev 4y ago
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.

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

by kmlx 4y ago

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

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.

giobox 4y ago

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. The UK for years could often rely on EU migration (freedom of movement rules etc) to a large extent to provide for its migrant workforce needs. Brexit closed this avenue completely and the UK hasn't yet built an immigration system remotely appropriate for its needs to replace it, and efforts to do so are of course hugely politically contentious.

dzonga 4y ago
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.
- giobox 4y ago
  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.

atemerev 4y ago

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.