The Welsh brain drain: An honest response from Australia

He is right and wrong...lead us not into a solicitor politician controlled Cymru... Can I ask what subject you teach...

The economy of Wales is what it is as a result of membership of the UK union which is designed to have one economic engine - London. That's why most of the rest of the UK is in a similar situation. There's only two fixes, a federal UK with central government moved out of London, or independence. Running away isn't the answer.

The feeling that English was charging in was abroad during the era of Hollywood 'Talkies' too, they being shown in a great many miners institutes in and around the coalfields. The entrance fee brought much needed finance to keep the institutes afloat in hard times at the cost of the need to understand the lingua franca... Hopalong Cassidy in fifties Dol...

He makes it sound as if Wales has gone downhill since de solution

This is a massive problem for Wales, and it works both ways. I spent ten years or so working in Silicon Valley, in senior management of a tech company, but eventually I came home and tried my best to start up a tech company in Wales. It was an awful experience. First of all I found raising investment just about impossible. Time and time again as I went round the big technology investors, I was told "that's an excellent business plan, and if you were based in Cambridge or Oxford or London we'd invest. But Wales? On your bike." I soon enough found out why. Eventually I got investment from Finance Wales, and some grants from the Welsh Government, but it was almost impossible to get anything actually done. Almost every time I tried to move forward, Finance Wales would say "don't do that! Apply for a grant first" and before I knew it I was in a maelstrom of form-filling and box-ticking. Eventually I got to hiring people, and found the next problem - because Wales is such a terrible place to try to run a business and most give up or leave, the same thing happens to the most talented people.... which means that if you're running a business in Wales and you want to hire them, they're not there. Eventually, sadly my business folded, after I'd lost all of the money I'd invested into it. I didn't give up, though. Five years after that I persuaded another Silicon Valley company to set up a software development office in Wrexham, having sold it to them on the strength of Glyndwr University's reputation in game development and its proximity to Manchester. Can you guess how many staff from Wales I managed to hire? That's right, none. Not one. Every single person came in from over the border. So it's a double problem. Talented and qualified people can't stay, because they can't find jobs. Businesses looking for talented and qualified people fail, because they can't find staff. Neither the Welsh Government or Plaid Cymru, or for that the Welsh Conservatives or Reform, have any vestige of a plan to address this. Fortunately Gwlad has, which is why I've become involved with them. They're the only party that has any real vision for how Wales can develop and escape from its current cycle of poverty and despair.

I’m in a completely different field to Matt (the author) but so much of what he has written resonates. Hopefully people who are in a similar position to him a few years ago will see it and be inspired. I wasted just over a decade trying to make my career work in and around Cardiff. I gave up in 2021. Within 2.5 weeks of looking for work in England I had 4 interviews lined up and a permanent job offer paying £9k a year more than I was earning at the time in Cardiff after one Teams call! Even looking for work in and around Cardiff is a glacial pace by comparison. Hybrid and remote working is further diminishing the available pool of candidates prepared to look at jobs based in Wales. I was getting calls from some of the agencies last year struggling to fill roles in Cardiff, Newport etc. Why would you settle for a maximum of £30-32,000 based in South East Wales (when they actually want to pay £28,000) when you can get home based jobs for employers outside of Wales offering at least £10k more? I was never out of work for long thankfully but there are too many public or third sector jobs and of those many are fixed term or part-time. I had colleagues at a council I worked for, who were permanently on fixed term contracts due to grant funding. This had persisted for nearing 2 decades and none of their jobs paid anywhere near £30,000.

“Wales offers nothing to the ambitious or talented”. Bollocks. Staying and trying to change things is hugely ambitious and requires all the talent we can get. It’s bloody hard. Easier to leave and lament how unambitious and mediocre Wales is. Roll-up your sleeves and fight to make it better!

Anyone can move to a country with a higher GDP per capita/better weather. Wales is less rich than most of England, but similar to Japan and Spain..More of the Welsh economy needs to be high value activities. As other posts have said, Wales isn’t very tech business friendly nor do people with the skills stay, because they can’t find jobs. What is the 20 mph speed limit message to potential investors in Wales? Risk aversed, where freight and travel costs have just risen or vibrant business friendly country?

I moved here to teach.But encountered a political basket case of an education system, driven by ideology and a longing for the past. Time and time again bottom of the Pisa tables and sadly some of the unhappiest, disillusioned children I've come across in 21 years of teaching. The authour is entirely correct when he says 'very little here for the talented and ambitious' . Most of my students all say the same, the first they are going to do once coming out of the factory system of Welsh education is leave. In touch with some that left 5-6 years ago all of whom articulate that wild horses wouldn't drag them back to Wales, they've made good lives for themselves elsewhere, 2 in Australia, several in London and another in Germany. I am also leaving this summer, I have made wonderful friends and did my best but the lack of vision and destructive group think in state education is grinding.

Da iawn, well said. I recognise all aspects of this analysis and also live in my own, created Cymry bubble within Lloegr.

Best of luck with Australia; when I lived there briefly I found it a nasty, parochial, racist inward looking country that hadn't made even a tenth of the effort that neighbouring NZ had to make reparations with their indigenous people. Awful bigoted people, hellish climate... I left as soon as i could.

I lived in Swansea for 16 years, and what this man is saying is the truth that nobody wants to hear. Wales is chock-full of nepotism, cronyism and disrespect for the contributions educated people can give to Welsh society. No wonder so many people leave. If you were constantly devauled by the people you thought were your brotherhood, you'd up and leave too. Granted, I'm English and I have now returned to England, but when I moved to Wales I was in my early teens and I spent the rest of my teen years and almost the entirety of my 20s in Swansea. I was effectively a local. And yet, I encountered many of the same problems the writer faced with anti-English bias on top of that. I actually remember going for my HGV driver training and the school that I did it with being weird with my drivers licence when I gave it to them to scan in because I had a Welsh licence but my birthplace was listed as being in England. I had so many formative experiences in Wales, including learning to drive and having my first jobs, and yet Wales consistently rejected me and rejected my contributions to society. I lived, worked and paid my taxes in Wales for years and followed the rules as I should have done, and that's how I was treated. Thank you for telling it like it is, Matt. More Welsh people (and, additionally, more people who have been a resident of Wales at any point) need to have the courage to say what you've just said. The people of Wales deserve better, and I will staunchly believe that until things do get better.

Excellent article and one that resonates with me. I wish I had left in my younger days. Now I'm stuck in a country with little enthusiasm for celebrating talented people and instead focus on creating a closed govt intent on turning Wales into a desert of ambition. Many of the Senedd are quite frankly mundane and talentless and have only got there through sheer luck or manipulation and ill deeds. I have been successful in my own field of work despite the fact of living here. It has not been easy and I do think it was a mistake not leaving. For me the biggest obstacle is the wholesale culture of despair, lack of ambition and poor workmanship everywhere you look. Tradespeople who wouldn't know a good job done if it smacked them in the face. People seemingly happy to be dragged along in life with no excitement or hope for the future. Wales is in crisis and this current govt is a closed shop intent on dragging us even further down.

Anglicisation is the least of our current problems. The state of the economy, the NHS, and law & order is appalling. On top of that we now have our school children being indoctrinated into the three fairy tales of climate catastrophe, gender identity, and queer theory, I would advise anyone who has the opportunity to get out of Wales, and indeed the UK.

We've always been so insular, it's a shame. And now we have the ability to make our own decisions on many of the important things, life in Wales just isn't improving for the majority. While most continue to vote for 'big' government, we will never get out of this predicament (no nation with 'big' government politics ever has).

Estonia has a thriving economy that has technology at its heart and freedoms that only the people in Wales could wish for. So please do not compare this country to Wales.

I moved our family of seven to Wales almost 20 years ago as we wanted different opportunities for our children in the historically and culturally diverse areas of Britain and Europe. So, within months of arriving, instead of our 9 year old daughter visiting a local museum for her school trip, (which is what would have happened for her in Australia), the school took her to Belgium where they visited a vast WWII graveyard, a theme park and a wonderful Belgian shopping experience. Our two older boys at 15 and 17 experienced an amazing music festival in Copenhagen etc. We visited West and North Wales that summer doing castle hopping. Schools were amazing, (education is modern/solid, staff and pupils friendly) and although our kids had to do some catching up in their education, 2 of our children went on to went to universities in West Wales and Cornwall, one son onto an exciting licensed aircraft engineering opportunity etc. My husband and I secured great jobs - he instructing in the aircraft sector both in Wales and occasionally worldwide, myself in wonderful Welsh schools working with special needs children. (My husband earns way over the 30k discussed in this article). Our children are happy, all have jobs they love, and now have families of their own. Wales is a place of steady growth, of an emerging modern identity who actively values and preserves their history, and who has exciting promise for future generations in belonging to the wider UK. People often ask would we ever return to live in Australia? Not on your Nellie!

I remember vividly as me and my young family (as expats) were driving across the old Severn Bridge and seeing the famous sign upon entering Cymru that I remarked to my wife - 'you realise, don't you, that my (highly paid) working career is totally f***ed and that we can never go back.' Well, that turned out to be true. However, there have been some compensations - which is a long story in itself.

Spot on Matt and well done to you for getting out of this insular, visionless and corrupt country. The country is in a mess and we have had this pathetic, talking shop of a senedd for over 25 years, wasted millions and millions of our money on vanity projects, yet they still blame Westminster. There are of course pockets of private enterprise successes but almost everything touched by welsh government or Welsh councils are failings or missed opportunities. Our culture has almost disappeared and walking through the dirty, litter strewn and decaying streets of our capital says it all. Walk through Grangetown, Splott or Riverside and the amount of immigrants who have taken over our streets is out of control and many have no respect or standards. Diversity is one thing, but these are becoming run down ghettos and filthy. Is this Westminster fault? Council taxes are extortionate but what do we get for it? Councils now spend 65% of this tax on themselves in wages and if you are not a friend or family member, you've got no chance of getting into this club. And they work from home!!! And unreachable, try speaking to anyone these days and resolving an issue, absolute scandal. Tourism is dyeing, the transport system is third world, manufacturing is shrinking and the money wasted on cardiff Airport is criminal. Somebody is pocketing millions. The welsh people have become apathetic and should be doing more to ensure how our country is run. But if you allow a blatant corrupt, smug liar to be in charge we will get what we deserve. So many talented young people from wales are leaving and will not be coming back. Once the housing boom collapses and we have no more welsh countryside to build on, what will Wales have to offer? Enjoy in Australia Matt, your children will be forever grateful.

Some irony here Matt. You seem to link Welsh economic and cultural decline to the English coming in and pricing the native Welsh out, whilst you yourself emigrate to a country whose famous quality of life was established on the back of the systematic extermination of an indigenous people (and language) by British (including Welsh) settlers. Your article is an apology for a form of Welsh nationalist bigotry and should be called out for what it is. Since returning to Wales, having lived and taught in England for over a decade, I have found a small but thriving local economy in Carmarthenshire and a community of friendly, open and creative artist and artisans, farmers, horticulturalists, tradesmen and professionals to share my life with. My daughter attends the excellent local Welsh medium primary school, which she shares with countless other bi-lingual children, many of whom were born in England and other places and whose families moved here to contribute to their new communities. On the whole, these people chase very different ambitions to that which Matt describes. I myself, for instance, took a huge pay cut to be here, and I don't regret it for one moment. In my experience, English speaking people are some of the most proactive and generous members of our community. They may not speak Welsh, but their Children will, albeit probably not the pure form that Matt no doubt would like them to speak. But they are here, Matt, living and working and paying their taxes. They are volunteering and voting and campaigning. They are what keeps modern Wales ticking, not some idealised enclave of Cymro living far far away. For what it's worth, Matt, I was the other day sitting on the beach at Llangrannog, Ceredigion, listening to the wonderful music of the Welsh language being spoken by multiple families along the sand, thinking to myself how alive the old language and culture is, and how harmoniously it could sit with the new, provided those idealists and bigots (that remain) begin to learn the art of acceptance.