I was up at the Cambridge university computing department the other day, and it became clear that this offer is really targeting the students there (it's advertised directly on their notice boards, for example).

The average quality of their graduates is pretty high, and as Red Gate are already in Cambridge, they need just a little kick to get the best people to come talk to them, rather than one of the investment banks (at the moment, only about half of the CS grads actually go and work in IT). It's not intended to get people to travel the globe to work for them, nor do they really want that hassle.

> this offer is really targeting the students there

No, it's not. It's really targeting the great software engineers and testers who are already working, maybe bored in their current job and need a new challenge, but who are reluctant to move in the current economic climate.

As for OP - you're correct, we require you already to have a work permit. The bureaucracy and costs are too high, which does mean we lose some great people, but there's not a lot we can do to change that situation.

Well, fair enough then; I'm presuming you're a RedGate employee. I'm then curious, how well are you doing persuading the "great software engineers" to interview away from their safe jobs with a £429 bit of kit?

Only 5% of Cambridge CS graduates go into finance compared with 60% who go into IT (excluding those going on to further study).

See if you can get a tier-1 work visa, you don't have to get an employer to sponsor it, you just have to get a certain amount of points (based on education, current job, age, etc.) to qualify.

Once you have one you can work for pretty much any employer in the UK (their is a minimum salary threshold I believe, but most software dev jobs should be comfortably above it).