UK's tech talent pipeline shrinks as overseas worker visa applications fall 7%

Fewer skilled overseas workers are applying for UK tech visas, with numbers down for the third year running even as ministers talk up Britain's chances in the global technology race. The tally fell 7 percent, from 37,376 applications in 2024 to 34,936 last year, according to UK Visas and Immigration figures obtained by accounting company RSM UK and shared with The Register. That's a long way from the 53,729 applications recorded in 2022, when the numbers peaked. RSM reckons the decline risks making an already difficult hunt for tech talent even harder. The underlying data also shows which occupations accounted for most of the overseas tech recruitment. Programmers and software developers were by far the largest group in 2025, with 15,689 certificates, followed by IT business analysts, architects, and systems designers with 11,821. IT quality and testing professionals accounted for another 3,091, cybersecurity professionals for 858, and IT network professionals for 310. Comparisons between individual occupations are complicated by a government classification change in April 2024, which split that year's figures between old and new codes. The overall total was unaffected. RSM nevertheless argues that the trend should concern an industry already struggling to recruit people with specialist skills. "Talent shortage remains one of the biggest challenges in the tech industry, and risks holding back growth, both short-term and in the long run, without some form of intervention," said Ben Bilsland, partner and head of technology industry at RSM UK. Bilsland said higher employment costs had made businesses wary of hiring and warned that AI wasn't going to magic the problem away, since companies still need skilled staff to deploy the technology "safely and successfully." RSM is calling for visa reform, pointing to comments from UK AI minister Kanishka Narayan about attracting more top engineers to Britain and making it easier for technology companies to scale at home. Bilsland said any reforms would need to be fast-tracked, adding that the application process should be accessible to tech companies of all sizes. Britain isn't alone in seeing fewer overseas workers knocking at the door. Across the Atlantic, H-1B registrations for the US government's 2026 fiscal year fell about 25 percent year-on-year, as The Register reported last year. US tech companies rely heavily on the visa to recruit foreign workers for specialist roles. There was more going on in the US, however. Immigration officials had introduced measures aimed at curbing duplicate registrations and fraud, including a one-entry-per-beneficiary system, while the registration fee jumped from $10 to $215. Still, both sets of numbers land as governments compete to attract the engineers, developers, and other specialists expected to build the next generation of AI and other emerging technologies. (R)