The UK must lower immigration costs for all researchers
Daniel Rathbone
Deputy Executive Director
This article first appeared on Research Professional News on January 28th 2026
23 Feb 2026
The UK is undeniably one of the best places in the world for research and development. The country has world-leading universities and businesses, a well-established public sector, and a history littered with advancements in the sciences and arts.
Yet despite warm words by the UK government, if you are a skilled individual looking to come and work in UK R&D, or an organisation looking to recruit the brightest and best talent from around the world, you are faced with significant barriers. These include high upfront costs and a system that is often confusing to navigate.
Last week, however, chancellor Rachel Reeves took some tentative steps to removing some of these barriers. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Reeves announced a series of measures that would bolster existing efforts to bring the best global talent to the UK and begin to tackle one of the biggest barriers of them all—visa fees.
The Campaign for Science and Engineering (Case) and our partners in the sector have long called for improvements to be made to our immigration system. While it is often lost among rhetoric from the UK government about bringing down net migration, there is an intent to encourage more of the world’s brightest and best to come to the UK, as set out in the immigration white paper back in May 2025.
After a slow start, it is therefore extremely welcome to see tangible progress made in recent months to meet this intent. The introduction of the Global Talent Taskforce (GTT) and positive changes to the global talent visaare a step in the direction of a more productive immigration system. Both measures were bolstered at last week’s announcement, with the GTT having its resourcing doubled, a positive sign of the importance the chancellor places on high-skilled immigration.
These measures are now joined by the first public acknowledgement from government that visa fees are a barrier to recruitment—something the government has been reluctant to admit until now.
So far, the chancellor’s speech and a ministerial statement tell us that, among other measures, the government will be “reimbursing visa fees in a limited and targeted manner for those with skills that will further our deep-tech, innovation and R&D aspirations, including in AI, quantum and semi-conductors”.
Immigration for R&D
Explore our recent projects looking at immigration into the UK R&D sector
ExploreA small slice
This policy does not go as far as Case has called for. It is limited to a small slice of the R&D sector, and it looks unlikely that it will tackle the major component of up-front fees— the immigration health surcharge—but it is a welcome first step.
While it is fantastic that the areas of R&D highlighted (semiconductors, AI and quantum) are set to see an improvement in their talent acquisition fortunes, it would be a missed opportunity to stop there.
R&D is not an exercise that happens, or thrives, in narrow lanes. It requires cross-collaboration from experts in varied and disparate fields.
One of the UK’s great strengths is that we maintain a healthy balance of disciplines. Each part supports the others and opens opportunities for innovation that would never occur in isolation.
If we are to maintain this, the government needs to go further and provide visa fee support for all areas of R&D, and for people working in all parts of the sector, including academia and businesses.
The health surcharge
On top of the direct visa charges that an individual or their employer needs to pay, there is something called the immigration health surcharge. This fee is, in simple terms, the upfront contribution of an individual towards their health and social care needs in the UK. In 2024, the surcharge was set to £1,035 per year per person. This is payable in full before a visa is issued, meaning a five-year stay would cost an individual £5,175, on top of other visa fees.
While it is vital that the NHS and other services are supported in caring for additional members of the UK population, the upfront nature and significant financial pressure these charges place on migrants do more harm than good. People are, and will continue to be, put off from coming to the UK, even if they are reimbursed for the minor component of their fees.
Government must look at how they can mitigate this substantial barrier, otherwise their other very positive interventions will not achieve their full potential.
Celebrating a win and the need to go further
Finally, the R&D sector is not the only one with legitimate demands on government’s time and resources. We must, of course, celebrate our wins, but with that we must be mindful that the wind will not always blow in our favour. Even if we believe in the benefits of additional policies, we cannot always expect them to happen.
However, with that said, the issue of skilled immigration to the UK is one we and our members feel strongly that government should go further and faster on. It is critically important for UK institutions to attract the highest possible level of talent to maintain their positions as world leaders. International researchers are essential to stay on the cutting edge, and we want to see the government expand their much-needed interventions to benefit the entire sector.
Daniel Rathbone is deputy executive director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering.
Related resources
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