Young people are abandoning Britain in search of sunnier climates in Southern Europe, Revolut’s billionaire co-founder has said.
Vlad Yatsenko, the chief technology officer of the digital bank, said its employees were increasingly taking advantage of remote working to seek warm weather and lower taxes.
He said the Government “needs to do better” to prevent workers from quitting Britain to work overseas, particularly as rival countries “are creating environments to attract talent”.
“Now the UK competes with Southern Europe,” said Mr Yatsenko. “Before, younger people who wanted to build their careers would go to London.
“But these days, people are going [to Southern Europe] because they are attracted by better financial rewards, incentives from tax authorities and the lifestyle.”
Countries such as Portugal and Italy have recently introduced tax breaks aimed at under-35s as part of a push to attract foreign talent and retain younger workers.
This has led to Lisbon emerging as a key start-up hub, while Italy has enjoyed a recent boost in early-stage technology funding, hitting $2bn (£1.8bn) so far this year.
The country is on track for its second-best year of funding since 2021, according to Dealroom data, at a time when other nations have experienced a drop.
Mr Yatsenko, a Ukrainian born in Germany, worked in Poland before moving to London to work in banking and software development. He co-founded Revolut with Nik Storonsky, its chief executive, in 2015.
Over the summer, Revolut secured a banking licence to expand its offering in Britain before launching a secondary share sale that has valued the business at $45bn. Mr Yatsenko owns roughly 3pc of the company, according to data provider Beauhurst, giving him a paper fortune of $1.3bn.
Despite concerns over talent, Mr Yatsenko said the UK remained a competitive place to launch a financial technology business.
His comments come amid concerns from start-up founders that Britain threatens to disincentivise entrepreneurship with increases to capital gains tax announced in October’s Budget.
Headquartered in Canary Wharf, Revolut employs more than 10,000 people worldwide, allowing its staff to work fully remotely or on a hybrid basis.
Mr Yatsenko said Revolut was able to stick to its hybrid model thanks to rigorous oversight of staff, with under-performers warned they should leave immediately or improve within six weeks.
The start-up has been infamous for its motto of “get s--- done” and its hard-charging culture.
While other bosses have fought to end home working, he said: “I read it as managers do not know what people in their teams are doing – our approach is different. Because there is this transparency in this way, we can be distributed.”