This question was posed at a BALPA conference a few years back, the gathered plebs were told that as English was the lingua franca of world business and consequently aviation, then most qualified fATPL/ATPL pilots should speak it to a certain degree of proficiency. Therefore English speaking countries are open to them (especially if they are EU citizens), unless the come from countries that can still go for the Green Card Lottery with the US (The UK isn't on the list because it is deemed that too many people of British decent already live there and the whole purpose was to diversify the population - Ireland is still on the list, nothing to do with the Kennedy's and significant Irish lobby in Congress .... don't get me started).
You apply for most (not all, including Italy) European countries and you are told unless you speak the local lingo then you are goosed. In the UK we can't use that old chestnut, however we watch other countries enforce a no foreign hire rule. No issue for the Dutch as they speak 23 languages from birth. We are lazy though so to a degree we have ourselves to blame.
However its a result of our imperial past, our colonisation of the world and the adoption of our language by the many and significantly the dominant power of the past 100 years. Also a lot of Tri-Rugby playing nations nationals are here on ancestry visas. Fair play to them, I hope to do the opposite in the future.
I see talk of Canadian pilots coming here for our summer season and reciprocation in the winter with TCX. Its saddening but its governed by the 2 overwhelming factors in aviation ... cost and risk.
I will never like this setup as how is it meant to foster UK talent, a portion of these 19,000 new pilots required by 2020 or other B/S I keep on reading in the press.
Lets look at what can British born and bred low houred pilots do?
I think in terms of the world industry the opportunity here is lower than most other 1st world, industrialised countries.