Visa changes boost Pinewood recruitment in the face of Brexit ‘brain drain’

Pinewood Technologies PLC employs one of the largest software development teams outside of London. Based in Birmingham, the DMS provider employs over 200 people with more than 10% from outside of the UK. Pinewood recruits from the EU and has also attracted Software Development talent from South America, Africa, Russia and Asia.

Following the Brexit vote employers have found it increasingly difficult to recruit from the EU, the UK is now less attractive to EU workers due to value of the pound and the uncertainty. This has led to more employers to look further afield. Since 2008 the UK has operated a points-based visa system for skilled non-EU workers with a maximum number permitted of 20,700 per year.  Since Brexit this service has been significantly oversubscribed with up to four times the number of applications from UK employers wishing to recruit.

Recent changes to the system have meant that the NHS visa applications are no longer included in the visa cap of 20,700 effectively increasing the number of visas available to businesses like Pinewood.  Pinewood has now successfully recruited 7 skilled graduate software developers from Vietnam who will join the multinational team at the year end.

“We are working harder than ever to source talent from other parts of the world. We’re also focussing on building home-grown talent,” says Lara Mazzolari, HR Business Partner. “Following work with local colleges and universities, over 10% of our team are placement students or apprentices, building their skills with us and ready to join the team when they graduate.”

Pinewood recently welcomed 20 undergraduate placements – a mixture of software development and business students.  Opportunities such as the placement schemes, graduate roles and apprenticeships by Pinewood, provide a gateway to a fantastic career in the automotive technology industry during an exciting period of rapid change.