UK Firms complain as Tier 2 visas become harder to get

A leading UK lifestyle management company has said that it may have to move parts of its operations overseas because it has become so difficult to bring in skilled staff with Tier 2 (General) skilled worker visas.
Alex Cheatle, the founder of Ten Group, told the Financial Times 'If you cannot recruit managers for a team here, you have to shift the entire department offshore'. He continued 'I am very passionate about being a British-based business but it becomes much more difficult to sustain that when you have got a global company'.

Ten Group was founded in 1998 by Mr Cheatle and his business partner Alex long. It runs 'lifestyle concierge services' for businessmen, making their appointments, booking flights and restaurants, and the like. It started with 20 clients and now has one million members around the world and has 350 staff in six countries.

Another UK entrepreneur, Nick Halstead of Datasift, had similar concerns about the Tier 2 visa system. Mr Halstead told the FT that he had had great difficulty in securing a visa for a 'crucial' software developer from Japan.
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