Tech Nations loses funding: is this the end for the UK tech global talent visa?
Published on 9th Mar 2023
Tech Nation is to cease operation on 31 March 2023 after the government terminated its grant funding. Tech Nation is a not-for-profit organisation and can therefore no longer operate. Tech Nation has worked with nearly a third of the country’s 122 unicorns since 2011 and ran the UK’s global tech talent visa. Though it was never a government organisation, Tech Nation was a key player in advancing the nation’s agenda to become a global start-up hub. Tech Nation ran dozens of accelerator programmes designed to help UK start-ups and scale-ups grow and expand internationally. Alumni include the biggest names in UK tech: Monzo, Revolut, Depop, Bloom & Wild, Zilch, Just Eat, Darktrace, Marshmallow, Ocado, Skyscanner, Peak AI and Deliveroo.
The closure of Tech Nation raises a number of questions: what happens to the people with that visa? What replaces Tech Nation? And what message does this send to the highly skilled innovative brains the UK government is stated to be so keen to attract?
The Immigration Rules state that "Where a person has entry clearance or permission on the global talent, start-up or innovator route their entry clearance or permission may be cancelled if their endorsing body ceases to hold that status for the route in which they were endorsed." This is aimed at allowing the Home Office some leeway in the event an endorsing body does not conduct sufficient due diligence on applications – which is not the case here. Visa holders will be counting on the fact that "may" is stated as opposed to "will", but some confirmations from the Home Office would be very welcome.
What will replace Tech Nation? The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport awarded a £12 million contract to Barclays Bank instead. The digital growth grant was established to support the UK’s digital tech sector, grow regional support networks, and help scale-up businesses in order to advance the UK’s agenda of becoming a global start-up hub. Barclays’ tech incubator Eagle Labs will use the government grant — which has been awarded for just two years — to launch new programmes to help tech companies.
No details are yet released, which leads onto the third question: the messaging. Closing a visa programme that by any measure has been hugely successful and to award a grant to a commercial business, is difficult to understand; but the Home Office does have history of strange decisions. The Investor visa was closed – permanently – after Russia invaded Ukraine. The concern being that it was not possible for the Home Office to verify adequately the source of funds of applicants. So, rather than amend the criteria, they decided to close the category entirely. The logic is hard to comprehend, the timing even more so given that visas themselves were not cancelled. In the case of Tech Nation, however, there is no suggestion at all that this visa category has been anything other than properly (and indeed expertly) run.
More than 400 entrepreneurs have signed an open letter calling on the government to rethink its decision to award the grant to Barclays. As a government-backed national asset, Tech Nation has delivered one of the best returns on investment for the taxpayer, delivering £15 return on every £1 funded by the UK government as well as being a genuine global player in the tech industry.
