Skills shortage

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 | Updated: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:59 am

Record numbers of Britons are leaving the country in the biggest exodus for almost 50 years, according to study by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The research reveals that there are now 3.247m British-born people living abroad, of whom more than 1.1m are highly-skilled university graduates.

More than three quarters of these professionals have settled abroad for more than 10 years and no other nation is losing so many qualified people. Britain has now lost more than 10% of its most skilled citizens, while overall only Mexico has had more people emigrate.

Britain's exodus is far higher than any of the OECD's other 29 members. Germany has lost only 860,000 highly-skilled workers, the US 410,000 and France 370,000.

The OECD found that 27.3% of those emigrating had health or education qualifications, 37.7% had humanities or social science degrees and 28.5% were scientists or engineers.

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