Remove
the friction.
~40% of UK masters and PhDs cannot start UK companies.
The UK student visa prohibits business activity. You can have a world-changing idea, but you cannot test it or build a deep tech startup here.
What about the Innovator Founder visa?
Students more than 24 months into their studies can switch to the Innovator Founder visa. This excludes most masters students and early PhDs. For those eligible, applying costs £1,000, plus £500 check-ins with the endorsing body. That is a heavy burden on a student stipend.
Even if you can afford it, the process costs time. The application requires a business plan with three-year cash flow forecasts before you have tested the idea with customers. That is needless friction for someone simply trying to validate an idea.
48,452 STEM postgraduate researchers on student visas, have explored startup ideas (7,268), could have got LOIs/pilots/raised funding (e.g. will need to incorporate).