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Comment by chatmasta | Hacker News Reader

Anyone looking to move to the UK, I highly recommend the Exceptional Talent visa. It’s a true hidden gem: tier 1, valid 5 years, no work restrictions, no investment required. There are only 200 slots available per year for digital technology, but the dirty secret is the 70% acceptance rate.

I successfully applied through this process last year and am now living in the UK. The whole process cost about $3k and a month of paperwork, but it was totally worth it.

If anyone has questions about it feel free to email me at the address in my profile.

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Critera for this appear to be: https://35z8e83m1ih83drye280o9d1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

Or: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

(Ah, the byzantine system: page 7 has three options, "Inside the UK", "Outside the UK", and "Croatia")

Wow, thanks for your comment! I can't believe I've never heard of this visa before. I've been researching different investor and freelancer visas for the last few years. I've never seen a 5 year visa with almost no restrictions, and where you can bring your family. That's really awesome!

I wouldn't move to the UK for a job, but it could be a great place to live as a freelancer.

What freelancer visa options are available? I’m over in the U.K. at the moment on a Tier 5 and and I looked at staying longer as a freelancer/contractor, my impression was the closest option I had was the investor visas.

Exceptional talent would cover freelancer if you frame it properly to emphasize the more entrepreneurial aspects of the business. For example, instead of calling yourself a freelancer, call yourself a director of a software consultancy.

There is a UK “freelance visa” IIRC but it has a £60k capital requirement which can be furnished either by yourself or by investors.

Germany has a freelancer visa that is pretty straightforward (albeit lots of paperwork.) Berlin is the easiest place to get that visa, but it can be done in other cities. I've also heard about Switzerland, Italy, Spain, France, Bulgaria, and Poland.

You can also get a work permit in Thailand via Iglu [1]. They take 30% of the income that you bring into Thailand, with a minimum of $2,500 per month.

[1] https://iglu.net/

Appreciated, but I’m in the UK now, so really I’m only interested I’m options that let me stay in the UK.

Estonia is launching a digital nomad visa next year. Also a bunch of countries offer permanent residency for retirees where you don't have to be an actual retiree, just prove you have enough income from abroad (Chile for example).

I wrote an article about emigration for self-employed: https://qotoqot.com/blog/best-countries/

TL;DR: Canada, Germany, Chile, Spain, Thailand

>There are only 200 slots available per year for digital technology, but the dirty secret is the 70% acceptance rate.

Something tells me that this year the acceptance rate is going to be much lower...

That’s why I never wrote this comment on similar topics while I was applying...

Also I think they doubled it to 400 this year.

>the Exceptional Talent visa. It’s a true hidden gem: tier 1, valid 5 years, no work restrictions

Is this a successor to, and similar to, the HSMP (Highly Skilled Migrant Programme) that the UK had some years ago?

What's good/bad about living in the UK, from your perspective?

it's not too hard to see the cons - poor, rainy weather, which can be depressing in itself. Old, mouldy houses with poor thermal insulation and generally high cost of living. Traffic in towns and cities. Uptight, insular, class based society that is not exactly welcoming to foreigners.

Now if you swap UK with London, a lot of these cons go out of the window as your neighbour is probably also a migrant. You still get very high cost of living, very bad car traffic, but relatively decent public transport. Wages, given the cost of rent are not that impressive and the weather in London is a bit better than the rest of the UK, but could be better, of course.

And, London = pollution. Things like weather and even an insular society can be circumvented or avoided. Nobody can escape unhealthy air. London isn't unique in this regard, but pollution is a factor when picking any of the larger European cities.

First, my (relatively privileged) perspective:

- American citizen (double taxes, etc)

- Self-employed software consultant working remotely for US clients

- Not living in London

- Live in a small town near Cambridge, where I commute via train to work in a coworking office

A lot of the "good parts" are not specific to the UK, but to the lifestyle of a software consultant. So I'll leave those out.

Also, it's worth noting that I've traveled and lived in many countries and cities. I've lived 3+ months in SF, NYC, Taipei, Seattle, Houston, and the UK. I've lived 1+ month in Budapest, Belgrade, Zagreb, and probably some others I'm forgetting. In the end, every place is really the same. Yes there are subtle differences, but you're still the same person with (hopefully) the same routine, etc. Especially when the language is the same, there are little to no major differences. Still, there are some subtleties so I will try to flesh some of those out.

-----

THE GOOD PARTS of living in the UK:

-----

- My girlfriend lives here (obviously the #1 benefit!)

- The GBP/USD exchange rate has been trashed the last two years. Since I work primarily with US clients and receive payments in USD, this is good for me when transferring. Although it's been climbing back up.

- I'm not surrounded by US politics everywhere I go, although it's still hard to avoid.

- My US rates give me a lot of relative spending power in the UK (but also see cons)

- UK.gov is actually a surprisingly helpful resource and really smoothens interactions with the government. Local government websites are another story.

- English breakfasts

- Banking is simpler than in the US, but regulations can be a pain, and often times it seems like something is "for your security" but it's just poorly thought out and implemented.

- The trains are great, but also pretty expensive.

- Cheap and fast mobile data plans. Reliable broadband.

-----

THE BAD PARTS of living in the UK:

-----

- The weather, except for 3-4 months in the summer. At least winters are mild, though.

- Missing my friends, family etc. Missing New York.

- Terrible, terrible wages in tech, typically half of US salaries even after adjustments. This isn't too much of a problem for me since I'm self-employed, but it does effectively take the option of employment off the table. Note that as a founder, this could be a benefit.

- Council taxes, TV licensing, needing a license for tons of things, and generally over-bureaucratic systems in banking and government that cause more problems than they attempt to solve. Sometimes it feels like you need a full background check just to walk down the street. The amount of private data I had to give to landlords is astounding.

- Massive surveillance, both online and offline, and especially on the motor ways. Few protections on freedom of speech.

- Groceries and restaurants are typically more expensive than in the US. In general the cost of living is higher, but this is somewhat offset by my living in a small town.

- No Chipotle. :(

- Classism, racism and sexism amongst the ruling/elite class. This doesn't affect me directly but I've seen it second-hand for sure.

- Very poor, uneducated population with astoundingly high rates of addiction to gambling, cigarettes and alcohol. [EDIT: Ok, this point is a bit unfair and hypocritical of me to paint with such a broad stroke. This criticism certainly does not apply to the entire population. However, where I live, in a rural area dominated by the horse racing industry, it definitely holds true. And I say this as someone who is friends with many people who fit this description. If I were a UK politician, I would eliminate gambling, raise the drinking and smoking age to 21 and require students to stay in school until age 18. This would solve a lot of problems IMO.]

- Extremely narrow, dangerous roads.

- Double taxation (this is a US issue and really not that big a deal, just more paperwork)

- Antiquated drug laws akin to 1980-2000 in the USA.

There is Chipotle in London now. I don't know about Cambridge.

Not yet. Looking at Wikipedia’s description of Chipotle, I think the closest thing Cambridge has is two Nanna Mexico places.

I’ve never been to Chipotle, but I can vouch for Nanna Mexico if you like burritos. Also, there are three of them in Cambridge, now.

> Extremely narrow, dangerous roads.

Interesting you say that, I find UK roads to be pretty safe, and US I find worse than most of Europe, particularly freeways. [1] indicates that the fatality rate in the US is almost twice what it is in the UK.

British weather is obviously a cliche, but having lived in a few other places I like the temperate nature (but then I would - I'm British). I spent a while in Arlington VA, and was extremely cold in the winter (-10 degC and snowing for multiple weeks), and very hot and humid in the summer. The more temperate climate here means you don't get extremes, and you can't beat the good parts of UK spring.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/road-safety/10882359/Wh...

Fair enough, I will say the motorways in the UK are very good. What I don't like is the dual-carriage ways and the roads out in the country. There is no margin for error, no breakdown lane, and roughly 1 meter of margin including both sides. Often the middle line will simply disappear for a few km, and there are no street lamps at night. I'm shocked more people don't find this dangerous.

It's even worse in towns on high street where people just park on the street, effectively turning roads into temporary one-way streets while people yield to cars in the opposite direction.

As for the weather, I tend to agree with you. I'll take temperate over extreme any day. But the constant rain can definitely get depressing.

I agree mostly with what you've said, however:

> - Extremely narrow, dangerous roads.

Roads are much safer in the UK than the US. [1]

UK Road Fatalities Per Year: 2.9 per 100,000

US Road Fatalities Per Year: 10.6 per 100,000

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

That's not a good statistic. It should take distance driven in to the account. US is a big place, so it would be better to compare yourself to someone similar that drives in a similar place in US and wears the seatbelt.

> That's not a good statistic. It should take distance driven in to the account.

Look at the per km column. It's still almost 2x higher in the US.

That isn't a particularly useful stat. Americans may just drive a higher percentage of their drives on highways, where one is most likely to kill oneself in a car. And saying something is 'dangerous' doesn't imply that it is 'deadly'. You may be much more likely to be in a small accident on a narrow, back-country English road than in a wide, back-country US road.

Property taxes (aka council tax) in the uk are trivial compared to the states a >£10 mill house on Ambassadors row pays a tiny amount of tax.

Yes, the closest thing the US has to council tax is property tax. However, the MAJOR difference is that in the US, the owner of the property pays the tax. In the UK, the resident of the property (i.e. the tenant) pays the tax. My problem with it is more philosophical than anything, as it seems like a regressive tax that only inhibits rate of home ownership (something UK politicians ostensibly want to increase).

And your point is? the US landlord just increases the rent to pay for their property tax.

But the tax is based on the value of the property, not the price of rent. So the incentives are misaligned with council tax because the government sets the price of the tax, on the value of the property the owner owns, but then the tenant pays the tax.

... council tax is based on the value of the property (with a rather low cap)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_Tax

> Each property is assigned one of eight bands (A to H) based on property value, and the tax is set as a fixed amount for each band. Some property is exempt from the tax, some people are exempt from the tax, while some get a discount.

I know that. I was talking about council tax, not property tax. So we said the same thing. Sorry I didn’t make that clear.

The problem is that the bands are updated every couple of decades and are not aligned with rental prices. Two properties renting in the same price range could be in different council tax bands.

This pricing mechanism separates what should be a bidirectional market (tenant and owner) into a tridirectional market (tenant, owner and government). An extra entity means more transaction costs which result in friction. Friction in a market has bad downstream effects, so you don’t want to introduce friction into the real estate market.

Either the tenant should pay a tax based on the rental price, and/or the owner should pay a tax based on the property value. I just don’t see why it makes sense to have the tenant pay a tax based on the property value, in which he has no stake.

Wow it sounds like you really do not like the UK. I'm surprised and sad that you find us significantly less educated and more racist than in the US and other places.

But what are you having to get a licence for? A television, but then what else? Guns?

And what do people have against the weather anyway? Because it rains? What's wrong with rain?

I live in a rural area so that definitely slants the racism in a bad direction. Sorry if it sounded harsh -- I've definitely met lots of nice, intelligent people here. But at the same time there are some really awful people as well.

The reason I put it in the cons is because a lot of it seems systemic; there is really no reason for legalized gambling, it's draining society. Kids shouldn't be able to opt out of school at 16. This is purely anecdotal, but in general I feel like there is a lack of ambition or desire to improve one’s standing in life. I attribute this to the social safety net and a long history of class immobility. In the US, there is very little safety net, and you’re on your own. This causes a lot of problems but also “lights a fire under your ass,” so to speak. You are only responsible for yourself and there is something romantic about that. In the UK there is nothing akin to the “American dream,” and that’s a shame.

To be fair, the US has many of these same problems, and some much worse. Also, I never said the UK was “significantly more” racist or uneducated than other places, and I don’t think it is. To be honest I'm a bit of a nihilist and rather cynical about the human condition sometimes. \_-_-_/

Re: licensing, it’s not so much a practical problem as a philosophical one. A lot of official processes just feel really invasive compared to what I’m used to in the US (as a citizen, at least — I’m sure the US processes feel quite invasive to foreigners.) It’s more of a feeling than something that can be logically explained. And certainly it’s not a huge problem nor a reason to avoid the country.

Re: weather. I actually kind of like the weather here, just because the temperate climate means the temperature range is much narrower than in the northeastern US where I’m from. That said, it would be nice to feel some heat now and then. And yeah, the rain isn’t that bad, it rarely even lasts longer than 20 minutes. But weather can be “bad” or “depressing” even when there is no rain. Gray skies have a real effect on psyche. Sometimes there will be weeks of gray, cloudy skies. It just wears on you after a while. This is probably why Britons like holidays so much. It’s nice to see the sun.

Overall I do like it here.

>but in general I feel like there is a lack of ambition or desire to improve one’s standing in life

That's kind of to be expected when you consider the history of European society in general. The rulers of Europe spent the better part of a millennium trying to get people to take for granted that if you're born a serf you're a serf for life and not going to climb the ladder very much. Social mobility is a new concept compared to social immobility. Change takes time.

> I never said the UK was “significantly more”

I thought you wouldn't have mentioned it as a con unless it was significant compared to other places. Otherwise this is a list of cons of humanity!

> in general I feel like there is a lack of ambition or desire to improve one’s standing in life.

Amen. Speaking as a disabled UK citizen, I've received welfare benefits since I was a small child, (young enough that the bank gave me toys when I went to open an account). Throughout school, I was probably the only student there receiving a guaranteed mid-three-figure sum of cash every single month without fail, other than the other disabled kids. At university I got additional allowances on top of student lones and grants, and when I inevitably didn't get a job after uni my benefits doubled as a result of being an unemployed adult. The government also paid my parents for caring for a disabled child.

I'm in my mid 20s now. Over the last few years since I left university I've had some consulting experience, presented at conferences and released some software projects of my own. But in the last month or so I've been waking up to the fact that I'm genuinely lazy and unprepared to take opportunities when they come my way. I do one consulting gig, and then because the fees are so high compared to my usual benefit-based income, I take a break. Meanwhile I don't tell the government I've been paid because heck, if I do, despite having only done a few jobs here and there and being nowhere near running a stable business, they'll cut my benefits off because for one week I was earning more than minimum wage.

I don't really write this as a complaint and I hope that's not how it comes across. My benefits have allowed me to see parts of the world and have experiences other people have to save up for, both in money and holiday time at work. But I'm now going through a period whereby I legitimately think that the only way to fully take advantage of my skills is to cut the safety net, be it entirely or in-part.

Kids shouldn't be able to opt out of school at 16.

They can't any more, they have to go on to an apprenticeship, training or stay at school until 18.

https://www.gov.uk/know-when-you-can-leave-school

I believe you have quite a narrow view of the UK, as probably we all have :) Let me comment on some of those "bad parts of living in the UK" as another immigrant in the UK:

- Weather: Really? I mean, it's not as cold as NYC nor you get hurricanes or huge storms like you get there. The weather is mild and the rain is hardly an annoyance. It's not LA or Barcelona, but if you're in England below Midlands you're in a pretty good place weather-wise. Also, climate change can only make it better ;-)

- Wages: Really? It's not SF where you can get $400k/year, but senior technical roles (not to mention VPs or CTOs and CISOs) can bag £90k-£100k. Also the daily rates for senior contracts go for £500-£700 per day.

- Council tax sure, it's expensive. TV licensing sure. What else?

- Surveillance on the motor ways: You mean speed cameras? Heck, I'll take a hundred speed cameras before a trigger-happy road cop. At least I know I won't get shot by the boys in blue for speeding.

- Groceries and restaurants are more expensive, yep. Many things are imported from other countries.

- Classism / racism is actually not as rampant as in... any other EU country. Trust me.

- Poor/Uneducated population: I'd rather see stats for those than base my opinion on the people around me. I live in the south east, so for me it's quite the opposite really. I'll skip commenting on your solutions to stop gambling and drinking, but there does seem to be a problem with binge drinking indeed - however that problem doesn't go away after people are become 21 years old.

- Narrow roads: There are veeeery old roads and veeeeery old things next to the roads that you can't just demolish. I find this problem to be more common in towns, where it's pretty usual to have two-directions streets where cars parked only leave room for one more car.

- Antiquated drug laws: I guess this is a reference to some US states decriminalizing weed? I can give you that, but come on, the UK does not have the stupid numbers of people in jail for smoking a joint that the US have :)

- I also would like to mention one of your good things that's BAD for me: The trains are awful, dirty (diesel! wtf?!) and often go late. They are also incredibly expensive, like 40x the price I was used to pay for better (and electric!) trains somewhere else in the EU.

Now I'll give some GOOD things from my own:

- London feels like the center of the world.

- You have direct flights from London to anywhere.

- Flights to Europe are stupidly cheap.

- You can get any food you want.

- It's a very multicultural country.

- Their culture, from literature to cinema and music is just astounding.

- The country has so much history behind every corner...

- The countryside and even some urban parks (so to speak) are F*CKING BEAUTIFUL.

- When it's sunny it's the most beautiful country on earth.

- The Premier League.

- The healthcare should go without mention. The NHS is, sadly, not what it used to be; but I'll take it any day instead of agonizingly dying because I can't afford insulin or some drug at 1000x its price.

- Sunday Roast.

- Guns are banned, so my kids don't have to learn nursery rhymes about school shootings.

- The people are mostly brilliant.

I don't understand why everyone wants sunshine. I love walking in the black mountains or Yorkshire moors in the fog and rain. Nothing wrong with a bit of drizzle!

>The trains are great, but also pretty expensive.

I'm from the UK but moved to Spain and used to live in Germany. I think the trains are better on the Mainland.

>Terrible, terrible wages in tech

This is true for the whole of Europe :(

I agree with you about the racism and uneducated population though - given I now have a foreign non-white SO it's part of the reason I wouldn't want to move back.

Kids will have to stay in school until 18 soon, the law has already passed but I doubt it'll help much if they don't want to be there.

Not many people are going to fit those criteria. Its like BT's former performance management system to get a cat 1 (top level) you had similar criteria.

The secret to application processes like this is that criteria are more guidelines than requirements. There is a 70% acceptance rate because of a dearth of applicants, probably because people read the criteria and think they don’t qualify.

I would imagine that many people on HN can frame their experience to fit the criteria, as I was able to do.

Also, if I were looking for full time employment and had the choice between UK and US, I would not come to the UK. I imagine this drives away a lot of non-self-employed or non-entrepreneurial applicants (though the visa isn’t really targeting them anyway, since at that point your employer should just sponsor you).

In the current UK climate where British citizens are being deported (Windrush Scandal) I can see the home office seeing strictly enforcing the rules to the letter as an easy win.

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