Digital Wanderers: Transforming Roles from Engineering Internship to Banking Position to Project Management - The Diverse Professionall Journeys of Mobile Workers
In the heart of the UK, a diverse tapestry of immigrants, including Nelson Ikan, strive to forge new paths in their careers. However, for many Nigerian migrants, this journey is fraught with challenges shaped by immigration policy changes, labour market barriers, and social exclusion.
**Challenges Faced by Nigerian Migrants**
1. **Immigration Policy Barriers:** Recent policy changes have severely limited routes for Nigerian migrants, particularly in health and social care sectors. The closure of care and senior care worker visa routes, effective July 2025, has left many Nigerian care professionals without a clear path forward, as their qualifications and earnings do not meet new graduate-level salary thresholds (£41,700+).
2. **Overqualification and Recognition of Qualifications:** Many Nigerian migrants, who are highly educated, find themselves in jobs for which they are overqualified due to employers' failure to recognise foreign qualifications and unfamiliarity with UK job search processes. This leads to underemployment and slowed career progression.
3. **Discrimination and Social Exclusion:** Black immigrants, including Nigerians, face systemic barriers such as racial discrimination in hiring, persistent inequality, and hostile public attitudes. These factors contribute to job insecurity and alienation, making career pivots more difficult.
4. **Lack of Access to Support Services:** Migrants without permanent residence often cannot access job support services, exacerbating the difficulty of navigating the UK labor market and its working culture.
5. **Economic Hardships:** Broader economic pressures, including the cost-of-living crisis, disproportionately affect Nigerian migrants, reducing their capacity to invest in career development or entrepreneurial ventures during pivot periods.
**Navigating the Challenges**
Despite these obstacles, Nigerian migrants employ various strategies to navigate these difficulties.
- **Entrepreneurship and Business Creation:** Some Nigerian migrants pivot by starting businesses, taking advantage of the UK’s relatively supportive policies toward small enterprise compared to Nigeria’s unstable markets and policies.
- **Leveraging Educational Opportunities:** Many Nigerian migrants, including students and researchers, initially come to the UK for education, which provides a foundation for future career change or advancement.
- **Building Informal Support Networks:** Migrants create community support structures to compensate for official service gaps, sharing resources, advice, and mentorship to help new arrivals and those in career transitions adapt more effectively to the UK labor market and cultural environment.
- **Adapting Job Search Strategies and Skills Development:** To counteract overqualification issues, migrants often seek additional UK-specific qualifications, improve language proficiency, and acquire skills aligned with UK employer expectations to enhance employability in their new career paths.
- **Advocacy and Community Engagement:** Nigerian migrants and their allies engage with advocacy to raise awareness of discriminatory policies and push for fairness in immigration and labor practices, aiming to open more pathways for career mobility.
**Nelson Ikan's Journey**
Nelson Ikan, a skilled migrant from Nigeria, arrived in the UK in November 2021. Despite facing challenges such as unpredictability, job rejections, and a cold, rigid system, Ikan persevered. He took up various roles in the UK as he tried to adjust to his new environment, eventually landing a project management role in healthcare.
Ikan's focus is on making the path easier for other skilled migrants. He enrolled in the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam and passed, which helped him gain more visibility in the corporate world. Ikan is now a senior project manager focused on digitising healthcare systems in the UK, working on an AI-powered solution to help project managers advance in their careers.
Despite his success, Ikan is aware of the fragility of his position and the struggles many skilled migrants face in transitioning out of survival mode. His past experiences have motivated him to help others avoid the challenges he faced. The system in the UK does not actively stop people from trying, but it does not make success easy for skilled migrants.
In conclusion, Nigerian migrants aiming to pivot careers in the UK confront stringent visa restrictions, underemployment due to qualification recognition gaps, and racial discrimination. They navigate these via entrepreneurship, education, community networks, skill adaptation, and advocacy, though systemic barriers remain significant. The journey of Nigerian migrants serves as a testament to their resilience and determination to thrive in a new land.
- To adapt to the UK workforce, many Nigerian immigrants seek digital transformation in their career development, such as acquiring UK-specific qualifications and enhancing language proficiency to align with employer expectations.
- To overcome traditional obstacles, like discrimination and social exclusion, some Nigerian migrants pursue educational opportunities in finance and technology, fields which offer a more diverse and inclusive labor market.
- In the face of immigration policy challenges, Nigerian migrants looking to advance their careers turn to self-development resources and general news platforms for updates on policy changes, advocacy efforts, and career opportunities.
