UK: ICT Visa salary now 40K Pounds
By Sumir Singh

Even as the Indian IT - ITES industry raked in $60 billion last year servicing USA and Europe, there was an inevitable backlash.  American and British techies, irate at losing jobs, campaigned against the Indian IT workers imported into their countries.  American anti H1B and anti Indian sites like EndH1B drew huge readerships. US techies and unions lobbied their politicians.

While not so vocal in UK, the British techies campaigned with equal determination.  By the end of 2009, the US and UK Government had tighten laws to stop Indian techies coming in easily.

In December, 2009, Techgoss had reported on how seven Indian tech companies were using up 50 percent of British Intra Company Transfer (ICT) Visas.  TCS and Infosys had taken most of the 15,000 British ICT Visas given to Indian companies who wanted to move highly specialized tech staff from India to United Kingdom.

This week, the British Government tightened the rules a bit more.  The British Home Secretary told their Parliament of their aim to reduce net migration from the hundreds of thousands down to the tens of thousands. But the British Government will do more to attract investors, entrepreneurs and people of exceptional talent.

New rules for Intra Company Transfers (ICT) were announced this week.  While the overall quota still stands, there is a new salary threshold of £40,000 for any intra-company transfers of longer than 12 months. Currently, only 50% of intra-company transfers meet these criteria. This will ensure those coming are only the senior managers and key specialists that international companies need to move within their organisations.

2 years ago, junior and mid level Indian techies could get a working visa to USA and Europe sometimes in weeks.  Today, it is much harder to get many working visas.

(Techgoss had reported the following on Dec 4, 2009)

UK ICT Visas: TCS and Infosys dominate
By Sumir Singh

London-based Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) was created on January 1, 2009 following the decision of the Association of Technology Staffing Companies (ATSCo) to admit members from other professional staffing sectors outside IT and engineering. Members of APSCo have an annual turnover of 6 Billion pounds.

APSCo is one of the most high profile HR firms in Europe with members who have deep pockets.  On Nov, 27, 2009 an APSCo annual charity ball raised 60,000 pounds for a children’s charity - ChildLine. APSCo uses the same clout to campaign against any misuse of the British working visas mainly used by Indian tech companies.  Last year, the British Government granted 30,000 ICT (Intra Company Transfer) Visas to non-EU tech workers to enter the country.

APSCo filed a Freedom of Information request with the British Government enquiring about details of such ICT Visas and has now released the results to the British media. ICTs were set up to import senior management or people with specific company skills. But like the H1B working visa in USA, there is some abuse of the system. Contractoruk is reporting:

“
Almost half of the 30,000 foreign IT workers who last year entered the UK on Intra Company transfers came from just seven companies headquartered in India.

Figures from the Home Office show that of the 29, 240 non-European IT workers who came to the UK in 2008, 43% of them were sponsored by firms on the sub-continent.

The three lead users of the ICT scheme were Tata, Infosys and Wipro, who placed 13%, 9% and 7%, respectively, of the 12,573 IT staff that the Indian firms imported.

The remaining four outfits, who between them sponsored 15% of the total, were Cognizant, Tech Mahindra, Satyam and HCL.
“