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This paper examines overseas nurses? motives for working in the UK. Increasing numbers of overseas skilled workers are providing cover for acute staff shortages in the UK healthcare sector. The paper explores how differences in individual life politics can provide a sociological explanation for micro dynamics in globalisation processes and public prejudices regarding work migration. Overseas nurses are frequently described as economic migrants who come from poor countries to gain financial benefits. Focus group interviews in three regions in the UK elicited overseas nurses? own views and their motives for working in the UK. Their motives were multifaceted and they expressed various personal, professional, financial and social motives. Conflicting perspectives on overseas nurses? motives are explained by combining macro theories of globalisation and micro theories of individuals? life strategies in the postmodern world. While overseas nurses take a global, transnational perspective on life the prejudicial purely economic understanding overseas nurses at times are met with in Britain represents a local perspective where the lives of individuals are seen to be confined within the borders of nation states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]