Wednesday 22 January 2025

What is the AI Opportunities Action plan?

The Labour government has unveiled its AI Opportunities Action Plan with the ambition of positioning the UK to shape the AI revolution.

Spearheaded by Matt Clifford CBE, Chair of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, the plan includes 50 recommendations in areas such as building AI infrastructure, unlocking public and private data to enable innovation and attracting and attracting/retaining the next generation of AI scientists and founders. Sir Keir Starmer has endorsed the plan and committed to advancing its recommendations.

What does the plan say on the point of immigration?

The Plan highlights the importance of training, attracting, and retaining top AI talent as a critical factor for the UK to achieve its AI ambitions, specifically, as this talent is so few in numbers but highly prized globally and countries who are able to attract it play an outsized role in the future of the AI.

The plan recommends exploring how the existing immigration system can be used to attract graduates from universities producing the world’s top AI talent and developing new visa pathways and enhance existing ones to support these graduates.

By way of an example, the report highlights two well respected universities, Indian Institutes of Technology and Carnegie Mellon University, that are not currently included on the  High Potential Individual visa eligibility list.

The High Potential Individual route permits graduates from eligible universities to live and work in the UK for two years, or three if they hold a doctoral degree. Applicants must have been awarded their qualifications by a university featured on the government’s annually updated Global Universities List. The list is published annually, featuring universities that are ranked in top 50 of university ranking league tables and appear on 2 or more of such lists.

The Plan further urges the government to address barriers like the cost and complexity of visas that create obstacles for startups and deters overseas talent from relocating to the UK.

The government, however, only partially accepted these recommendations, stating that the UK already offers competitive visa options, including the Skilled Worker, Innovator Founder, Government Authorised Exchange, and Global Talent. The government response noted that talented AI graduates from institutions not on the High Potential Individual list could still enter the UK through these routes.

This stance aligns with Labour’s broader commitment to reducing net migration and reliance on overseas workers. In August 2024, the government tasked the Migration Advisory Committee with reviewing IT and engineering occupation grouping to investigate their dependence on international recruitment. The Migration Advisory Committee has been asked to explore policy levers within the immigration system to encourage employers to recruit domestically. It is unlikely that the government will stray away from their stance.

What are the main UK immigration routes are currently available for AI talent?

The primary and most used route is Skilled Worker, which enables individuals to come to and stay in the UK to do an eligible job with an employer holding a sponsor licence for up to 5 years, leading to settlement. The main concerns raised about this route are focused on the restrictions on work that can be carried out, the considerable amount of red tape imposed on sponsors, and the substantial and ever-increasing application fees. Recent increases to the salary requirements have also made this route less accessible, particularly for small businesses and startups.

The Innovator Founder route is designed for those looking to establish and run an innovative business in the UK. Applicants must demonstrate that their business idea is innovative, viable, scalable, as assessed by a Home Office-approved endorsing body. The concerns raised about this route tend to centre on the application process, which can be complicated and lengthy, and the settlement requirements, which are more demanding compared to other routes. For these reasons, the route has had limited take-up.

The Global Talent route is open to individuals with exceptional talent or promise in fields like science, engineering, and digital technology (including AI). It is one of the most attractive routes as it is not sponsored, the application fees are less than other routes and there is the possibility of securing settlement on an accelerated basis. However, individuals can be deterred by the requirement for endorsement from a designated body for relevant areas of talent (such as Tech Nation and Royal Academy of Engineering) as this can require a lot of time and there is no certainty an endorsement request with be approved. That can discourage individuals that, although outstanding, do not have time to prepare an endorsement application.

It can be seen that, although the government insists these immigration routes allow talent to join UK-based organisations or start their own businesses in the UK, there are hurdles for each of the routes that will need to be addressed if the UK immigration system is to stand out relative to other countries in encouraging top AI talent to relocate to the UK.

In a globalised world, the government’s ability to balance training and investing into the domestic workforce while creating focused and easy to access immigration routes to bring in international talent will be important to making the UK a leader in AI. This is an opportunity the government needs to take for the benefit of the UK’s future economic prosperity.

We are reassured by Rachel Reeves’ comments at an event hosted by Bloomberg during the World Economic Forum in Davos on 22 January 2025 during which she said: “Although we know that we need to bring immigration down, particularly illegal immigration into the UK, we are going to look again at routes for the highest-skilled people, visas particularly in areas like AI and life sciences, because Britain is open, for business.”

The government’s position for talented workers from overseas will become clearer with its White Paper on immigration later 2025 and once the Migration Advisory Committee response is published.

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To learn more about upcoming changes to UK immigration law, please refer to our website, contact your assigned LDI lawyer or email enquiries@lauradevine.com.