If you are an academic with a PhD, or someone who has achieved some level of recognition in the arts or digital technology, and you would like to come to the United Kingdom, the UK's "Global Talent" visa is worth taking a look at. 

Although the website makes it sound as if it is intended for the Stephen Hawkings of the world, I know multiple academics who did not think of themselves as "international leaders in their field" but managed to qualify nevertheless. If you are an academic-- assuming you do not already have an eligible UK job offer, individual fellowship, UKRI research grant, or eligible award--you will have to go through a peer review process, which I assume is the typical route by which academics get in. For the digital technologies route, this blog claims that the success rate is around 50% (though of course, that's out of the people who submit applications, and the criteria are stringent enough that there's a certain amount of self-selection going on).