A Reddit post titled “London dreams are about to end” by a Bangladeshi academic working in the UK has sparked a wave of emotional and pointed reactions online, highlighting the deepening anxiety among international students and skilled workers following the UK government’s recent salary threshold hike for visa renewals.
“Skilled worker salary threshold in the UK just increased again. I work in academia and my threshold now is 50k, which is almost a 100% increase on what I make now,” the user wrote. “It’s genuinely depressing seeing efforts of the last years go down the drain.”
The poster, who says they have about 10 months left on their current visa, added, “I love living in London, but the new rules have essentially killed my chances of staying here any further… Big city dream are all but over for me.”
The Reddit thread has since become a gathering point for others in similar positions, particularly early-career researchers and postdocs. One reply said, “27k for academia in London is atrocious. Any chance you could improve on that slightly and work in an industry with a lower threshold until you get ILR?”
But others offered a starker dose of realism—and some tough love. One user wrote, “Don’t cry that it’s going to be over, be happy it happened… You’ll be 30 starting a new chapter back in Bangladesh, not grinding on 25k in London. Best of luck whatever you do.”
Another, claiming to hold a PhD and three years of experience, called the new 50k benchmark “unrealistic” for most research professionals, “I went to top-tier unis around Europe. The starting salary of a postdoc is 40k. Highly skilled positions that require a PhD often start at 37k… Realistically maybe 1% of people will make 50k straight out of uni.”
While some suggested switching industries or countries, others pointed to what they see as long-term damage to the UK’s competitiveness, “This decision to be anti-immigrant will just make the UK even less competitive and raise prices IMO.”