UK IMMIGRATION NEWS

Highly skilled migrants bring clever balance to UK

Saturday, 1 March 2008

Britain is enjoying an influx of highly skilled migrants, whose numbers outweigh those leaving the country, a recent survey revealed.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that about 10.3% of Britons with university degrees are currently living overseas, making other developed countries their home.

But the loss of these 1.1 million Britons has only opened the immigration path to millions of skilled graduates from all over the world who are contributing to a phenomenon in the UK, known as the "brain gain".

The OECD found that these immigrant graduates are significantly better educated than the native UK population. In fact, 34.8% of foreign-born adults living in Britain have higher education qualifications, compared with 20.1% of Britons.

“Britain has been lucky - although it has lost a substantial number of people, it has attracted more than a million skilled immigrants to replace them. If they stop coming that would be a problem,” said Danny Sriskandarajah, a migration expert at the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Many highly educated immigrants join the UK's workforce under the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP), a visa for non-European Union nationals.

“British people have lots of opportunities to move and work abroad, so very highly skilled people are travelling around," said a spokesman for the Paris-based OECD. "It is seen by many British people as part of their personal development.”

But the adventure bug has not just bitten UK's highly skilled people. 860,000 university graduates have left their homes in Germany, 410,000 in America and 370,000 in France to find work experience abroad - much to many a foreign-born graduate's delight, who are more than ready to take their places.

If you are interested in working in the UK, why not find out for which work visa you qualify for, by doing our free online visa eligibility assessment, which will deliver instant results!

Your skills may open the doorway to immigration sooner than you think!