Ah ça, indeed, je te le fais pas dire (you can say that again), those halcyon days are well and truly over… In theory it’d be possible for someone like David to come to Scotland the UK and work in IT but bon, there are a few hurdles pas piquées des hannetons…
Just to give you an idea, if you want the equivalent of the Carte de Séjour, the Indefinite Leave to Remain card, it’s £2,389. Yep, nearly 2 and a half grand, now that the Tories have turned the Home Office into a hostile luxury goods business.
Under the new points-based visa system, to live and work in the UK you need an offer of employment or a contract paying at least >£25,000/year (that’s the minimum, it’s the threshold for the Tier 2 General visa – higher for the other Tiers).
And up to recently, non-EU workers already in the UK had to be earning at least £30,000/yr, not sure what the situation is as we speak. It pleased the large Brexity public but it pissed off the likes of the US, Australia etc. so I think that the Tories reluctantly had to tone it down. It was to be £35,000 but it’s been generously lowered and, I understand, the requirements have been relaxed a bit but only because some major partner countries (eg the US and Australia) threatened to toughen the immigration legislation for UK migrants.
The job offer that David & his partner would get would also have to come from a a “licensed employer”, an employer holding a valid sponsorship licence, so s.o or an organisation that will accept to go through the hoops and deal with the Home Office (not for the faint of the heart, although if you neatly tick all the boxes etc. it should be fine) but there’s an additional “going rate” requirement which complicates things for both the employer and worker: If the ‘going rate’ for your job is higher than both of these, you’ll usually need to be paid at least the going rate
And of course employers also have to pay for the privilege, it’s called the Immigration Skills Charge (from £364 per worker per year for small businesses and charities, but it’s usually around the £1,000 mark per worker for the first 12 months, with an additional £500 charge for each subsequent six-month period).
And good luck to ordinary people with dealing with the Home Office, remotely as you can’t see anyone as it’s all centralised in Croydon, they don’t answer the phone, don’t reply to emails etc.
You’ll then need to pay regularly to update your visa and pay a good whack for it, the fee varies according to the type of visa.
If you want your spouse (you have to be married) to join you, if s.he passes the language requirement, it can take up to 3 years (an ex lecturer colleague of mine, on a decent wage then, had to wait 28 months for his Chinese wife to be allowed to join him on Tyneside) and costs £1,033 (for 2 ½ years), + £624 a year to use the NHS.
If while you’re in the UK, you have a child and want to register your child as British (since, unlike France where a child to at least one parent who is either a French citizen or born in France, is automatically French, the UK hasn’t had jus soli since 1983) that registration incurs an extra fee of £1,000, just to register the child as British… Of course while the child isn’t registered, s.he too will need to have the relevant, expensive, paperwork.