Coming to the UK

Some immigrants viewed the UK with a sense of adventure. ‘I thought I’d come and see what it was like. All my friends and family were heading off to London and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I thought I’d try it out for a couple of years. But look at me, I’m still here after 45 years,’ says Mrs Jo Philips, 65. She worked as a teacher in Dominica but in Britain she could only find work on a production line, ‘You took what was offered because we were a community trying to establish ourselves,’ she says.

Children of all three, Singh, Dev and Philips have gone on to do A levels and degrees and are currently employed in banking, medicine and marketing. They all agree that migrating to the UK was worth the initial hardship – it allowed their children opportunities that could only be imagined in their mother countries.

What’s happening now?
Fifty years on, Britain is once again facing a massive skills shortage across a whole range of industries including accountancy, teaching, nursing, administration and IT. Employment and Equal Opportunities Minister, Margaret Hodge, wants to relax employment restrictions for certain key workers from abroad rather than opt for the wholesale permanent importing of labour. Graduates with skills in short supply no longer require two years’ relevant postgraduate employment before working in the UK. Procedures for granting work permits are being simplified and extended to five rather than three years.