Are you an ethnic minority?

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

I'm a software dev and it occurred to me that being white British born guy makes me the ethnic minority at work these days.

Working government contracts, last one I was hired by an Indian company, my team consists of entirely indians. Same at my old job.

I am in a teams call with another team and everyone in the call is Indian apart from me and it made me think. I can't actually remember the last time I worked with a white British guy.

I thought it was funny working on secure UK government projects to be the only person of UK nationality in the past few roles.

What about you guys?

[northernladuk]

I don't believe your situation makes you an ethnic minority. It is just an imbalance from perceived social norms. It's just the way in certain IT roles now. If you are doing a role in with a smaller client/owned managed environment the balance would be different. If you are working with large, corporate client and particularly in large programmes of work it's the norm and has been for decades.

Looking back at my CV all my history is now on programmes that are onshore heavy. 2008 is the last gig I have on. I can't even remember the last gig that wasn't this way although I do tend to sit with programme/project teams not with the devs etc but they are around.

You don't need to be a UK national to get security clearance anymore. Takes a bit more time I believe but it's normal process for Indian and other nationals to get clearance but it can differ between organisations.

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

Is it just public sector roles or is it all large companies? Just on my experiences, historically I think the testers have almost always been Indian even at smaller companies but recent roles it seems that everyone is Indian, testers, PMs, UX designers, developers, architects, and managers.

[northernladuk]

Is it just public sector roles or is it all large companies? Just on my experiences, historically I think the testers have almost always been Indian even at smaller companies but recent roles it seems that everyone is Indian, testers, PMs, UX designers, developers, architects, and managers.

I'll stick my neck out here and say it probably started in the private sector as there is a focus on cost and number of bodies. Public sector aren't as finance vs profit driven and have policies like data going offshore and SC they've had to deal with first.

But yeah, anything needing lots of temporary bodies then the offshore/onshore offerings are the default go to now.

To be fair I'm pretty shocked this is all news to you.

[Paddy]

You don't need to be a UK national to get security clearance anymore. Takes a bit more time I believe but it's normal process for Indian and other nationals to get clearance but it can differ between organisations.

I worked at an investment bank, there was an Aussie who boasted that he had a criminal record in Australia for fraud but he was only checked foe the time he was in the UK. A Lebanese who was exempt from background checks because there was no mechanism to check in Lebanon.

[Dactylion]

Working government contracts, last one I was hired by an Indian company, my team consists of entirely indians. Same at my old job.

At the risk of stating the obvious........................ No Tulip Sherlock!

If you take a contract with Wipro, Tata, InfoSys etc - You as a UK resident (let alone UK National) will be in the minority no matter who your end client maybe.

As an aside I did a role once long ago with Wipro and I worked with a Sikh chap (English born) and he experienced amazing prejudice from all the Wipro bods.

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

Yeah, but it surprised me that an all Indian consultancy would be supplying people for a UK SC role. Literally I got a crackly bad phone call from someone I could barely understand and I hung up, but they kept emailing and calling and eventually I spoke to them and landed a decent gig out of it. They merely supplied me to the gov job.

It was an indian recruiter, supplying me to an indian consultancy, supplying me to a gov role. I didn't have any further contact with the recruiter or consultancy, other than a once every 2 months call saying 'all ok? good'. I'm sure they both pocketed some tidy cash though.

I get that historically there were always a few indian staff but it seems to have progressed where not only are 90% of the people indian but the companies hiring you are indian as well. Eventually our entire UK government will be indian. Even the PM is of Indian descent.

[Dactylion]

Have you had the permie offer yet? Whenever I get a gig with Indian clients... I get a permie* offer within a few days

* obviously I have never taken it!!!
I am 100% certain the permie role is just an attempt to get "me" at a cheap rate (and the role would vanish after the project finished)

[vetran]

London & Slough I am an ethnic minority compared to locals. Most hirers will hire from the Indian sub continent.

DBS & SC are less strict with people who come from abroad. It is however life and get on with it.

[TwoWolves]

It seems nuts to me to employ foreigners on security-cleared projects. Having said that, I interviewed at the HO and saw only one other white guy in three floors of packed offices.

I'm currently working at a Private Sector gig and I sense they bust a gut to avoid hiring Indians if they can, but have just hired a Nigerian DevOps guy who is actually pretty good.

Personally, I always get on well with the Indian Devs, they like you if you know your stuff and I can't always say that for the Brits.