The impact of Brexit announcement on the UK’s attractiveness as a destination for self-initiated expatriates

Abstract

Due to globalization and the continuously changing working environments, an increasing number of individuals are taking charge of their own careers and seeking opportunities abroad, and many choose to expatriate themselves. At the same time, Brexit is about to bring unprecedented changes to the United Kingdom and to the European Union as well as to their citizens and many organizations. This thesis aims to explore what motivated Finnish self-initiated expatriates to initiate their global mobility and to choose the UK as their destination in the first place, and whether the announcement of Brexit has had an impact on the attractiveness of the UK as a destination for them.

The theoretical framework of this thesis is based on a vast amount of literature on SIE’s, much of which has recently started to focus on their motivations specifically. Brexit and its repercussions remain unknown at the time of writing this thesis, and as such a current phenomenon it is not well covered in academic literature. Yet, the topic has been discussed widely in various, continuously emerging public sources. This master’s thesis has been carried out as a qualitative and exploratory study, for which the empirical data was collected through eight semi-structured interviews with Finnish SIE’s in the UK.

The most common main motivations to go abroad were the possibility for a gap year, the desire for new experiences, long-term international orientation, and study and career related reasons. Additional motivators included being influenced or inspired by other people and their international experiences, international inclination, and the desire to improve language skills. The reasons to choose the UK were the English language and its cultural familiarity and similarities to Finland. While their initial motivations to move abroad or to the UK specifically are not likely to be affected by Brexit, the findings suggest that Brexit announcement has had a negative effect on the attractiveness of the UK as a destination for them, and a slight majority would not currently self-initiate a move there. Their main concerns regarding Brexit were the uncertainties, the potential practical hindrances post-Brexit and the feeling of not being welcome to the UK anymore.