Universities in the UK on the whole do a good job in providing a education that achieves a balance between practicality and theory. The level of conceptual thinking is high and there is a healthy acceptance of an ³edgy² and free-thinking approach.

A well-known modern philosopher, possibly Jarvis Cocker, commented that groundbreaking art and the breeding ground from whence it came were a byproduct of a maladjusted but free society. It’s this culture of an open-minded but technically sound academia that has brought thousands of talented foreign students to the UK. We give them a great education, they become excellent at the skills our society needs. And now we are increasingly allowing them to disappear, to the detriment of our social and economic future.

An architect friend has just finished her part III at one of the top (possibly the top) schools in the country. She is equipped with a range of critical thinking and creative skills that would be an asset to an employer in the UK. However, under new immigration rules, in order to stay she now has to earn a minimum of £35,000 per year, a sum that has risen by a huge amount recently and a big number for a new employee. Not many practices are willing to make that commitment and hence against her wishes she may have to return home ­her home country’s gain, the UK’s loss.

If the same rules had been applied several decades ago would young talents such as Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas have felt encouraged to join the AA and apply the skills they had learnt? As @Rodrigo_Medina commented on Twitter, it’s sad to see that even in the most developed countries the measurement of value of someone’s worth is so retrograde.

I’m writing this on a plane to Copenhagen, which makes the situation even more relevant for me. We are in the midst of a lingering recession and work in the UK is harder to come by. Luckily though, the world is becoming smaller, our building professionals are well regarded abroad and at present UK-PLC performs well. Where we sometimes fall down though is a lack of understanding of the nuances of working in foreign markets.

By embracing people from outside of the UK and tapping into their skills we can improve our chances in this respect. We can’t be insular in trying to protect our economic interests and we are in danger of missing out on people with fantastically diverse skills.

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