The Presidents of the UK National Academies have written to Home Secretary, Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP, outlining why a £30,000 salary threshold would be detrimental for research and innovation.
Many important roles within the research and innovation workforce come with salaries which would not meet the proposed threshold, including research technicians who have specialist skills to operate equipment and maintain ongoing experiments, and language assistants who provide expert teaching support.
A £30,000 threshold could significantly hamper the UK’s ability to fill roles like this across the country. Many of these roles are occupied by staff from the European Economic Area, who are currently able to work in the UK with no salary or visa restrictions. A number of these roles will face immediate shortages if overseas nationals can no longer fill them.
The Royal Society has also published a factsheet showing how the £30,000 salary threshold would be detrimental to research and innovation.