Zimbabwe is now in the top five of skilled visas to the United Kingdom as more than 8,000 people were granted visas by the British government from the year 2020 to 2022.
According to UK government data, despite the small population of Zimbabwe, v isas increased by 424% since 2020, with the health sector the most affected as health professionals continue to leave the country over poor pay.
As at March 2022, Skilled work visa grants increased by 66% (+72,208) to 182,153, compared with the year ending March 2020.
There were 73,400 grants of Skilled worker visas and 75,963 grants of Skilled worker Health & Care visas.
Intra-company transfer (ICTs) grants increased by 17,009 (+125%) to 30,617 compared with the year ending March 2021, however, ICTs are still 35% lower compared with the year ending March 2020. This continues the decline since 2016 for the ICT visa route.
The report also revealed that there has been a particularly large proportional increase in visa grants to both Nigerian nationals (+214%, +8,771) and Zimbabwean nationals (+424%, +4,490) since the year ending March 2020.
