Britain lures talent: overseas as entrepreneurs move in

The government campaigns for re-election this year in the face of headlines predicting an exodus of financial brains if bankers’ bonuses are more heavily taxed, voices like his may be heard with increasing frequency in some national media.

But international experts agree there has been genuine progress in the country which a few decades ago was fast fading as a magnet for the science, health and technology brains and entrepreneurship that also drive the knowledge economy.

Besides Gal, whose software allows media companies to make money from online videos by adding “hotspots” to outlets for consumer products, others are increasingly choosing Britain as the place to be.

Around 100 have in the past five years picked the country as a hub: in global migration terms they are a trickle, but are nonetheless countering a “brain drain” of talent symbolised 20 years ago by the departure to Switzerland of the inventor of the World Wide Web.

Tim Berners-Lee, a graduate of Oxford University, had to move to Geneva to access the largest internet node in Europe, at the CERN physics laboratory.

In response to a set of policies put in place a decade after he left, data from the British government’s department for trade and investment (UKTI) now show new businesses from such countries as the United States, South Korea and Israel have also relocated or set up new headquarters in Britain.

The pace has accelerated: nine new foreign entrepreneurs came in 2005/2006, followed by another 10 in 2006/2007, then 22 in 2007/2008, 28 in 2008/2009 and another 30 in the first nine months of 2009/2010.

Jean-Christophe Dumont, a migration expert at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), said the UK is now well placed in Europe on a number of indexes measuring factors like taxes, red tape, the dynamics of internal markets and how they are connected on the world stage, and the ability to access a qualified work force.

“It’s not really a surprise to see that the UK has been able to attract a significant number of these people,” he told Reuters.

Seeing Britain’s success, he added, such countries as France and Japan have recently drawn up policies to attract foreign entrepreneurs or wealthy investors who might plough large sums into job-creating businesses and boost economies.