UK’s ‘high potential’ visa still ‘too focused on US universities’

A UK government list of top-ranked global universities giving graduates eligibility for “High Potential Individual” visas has added two Chinese institutions and lost two US ones, but the scheme remains too focused on North American universities, according to an immigration lawyer.

The High Potential Individual visa grants the right to work in the UK for two years – three after a PhD – to graduates of selected prestigious foreign universities. It’s an equivalent to the post-study work visa granted to overseas graduates of UK universities.

To be eligible, graduates must have graduated in the last five years from a university that featured, in the year they graduated, in the top 50 of two out of three global university rankings: Times Higher Education, QS and the Academic Ranking of World Universities, known as the Shanghai Ranking.

The Home Office, which announced the visa scheme in 2022, has now published its latest version of the list of institutions. In the 2023 version, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Delft University of Technology are newcomers to a list comprising 39 institutions; while the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Queensland drop off the list.

But the limited shuffling of the pack will do little to allay the concerns of critics who think the Home Office has made the visa too geographically restricted. Phil Baty, THE’s chief global affairs officer, previously said it was a “big problem” that none of the selected universities were from Africa, Latin America or South Asia.

Joanna Hunt, director of immigration at law firm Fieldfisher, said it was “a scheme that could do more – there is more potential in the High Potential route that could be exploited”.

She added: “In some ways it’s a very nice visa. It’s straightforward: you’ve got a degree from one of these universities and you can get a two-year visa to go and work in the UK, which is a great way to get [overseas] graduates to start work [in the UK] and get a foothold in the labour market.”

However, the list is “still heavily tilted towards North America”, she continued.

North American institutions make up 22 out of the 39 institutions – 19 from the US, three from Canada.

There are now five Chinese universities on the list – but none from India.

“You are fighting for graduates in a labour market that is already pretty tough; the salaries tend to be higher in the US,” said Ms Hunt.

“The idea you’re going to attract graduates from the US, who could be offered better salaries in their home country, to come to the UK – it’s a tough sell.”

The inclusion of Indian or South American universities could make the visa scheme “really exciting”, Ms Hunt said.

The Home Office had made an “arbitrary” choice in limiting the list to top-50 institutions – “it could be a top 80…that maybe would scoop up other countries as well”, she argued.

Ms Hunt said she knew clients in some sectors of industry who were “desperate” for highly skilled graduates.

“If they knew, for instance, that all the top people from a university in India could come in for a two-year visa, then that would be revolutionary for them,” she added.

“There’s ways they [the Home Office] could easily tweak the rules of the visa to make it broader and more inclusive for a wider range of applicants from a broader range of countries, which would certainly be welcomed by employers in the UK.”

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com