Recruiters have warned that the war for engineering talent is set to intensify come the recovery following the removal of civil and aircraft engineers from the list of in-demand occupations.

Yesterday in Gordon Brown’s speech on immigration, the Prime Minister announced that hospital consultants, civil engineers, aircraft engineers and ship’s officers will be removed from the list of in-demand occupations which Britain needs to recruit from abroad.

David Leyshon, managing director at CBS Butler, told Recruiter: “The Prime Minister is basing that on the major slowdown of the last 12 months but the underlying skills shortage remains. But as the economy improves, those skills shortages will come back with a vengeance.

“It is going to restrict access to talent and is going to mean employers are going to have recruitment difficulties in meeting project deadlines. In terms of agencies, we will be fishing in a smaller pond and there will be an escalation of rates and salaries and agencies will not be able to deliver on client needs.”

Craig Jackson, head of manufacturing and technology at Scottish recruiter Eden Scott, adds: “Civil engineering has been decimated in Scotland and there hasn’t been a lot of recruitment for a while but it is hard enough finding talent without closing those doors.

“There are a lot of displaced people in the market. When clients do have requirements, they can place adverts and get the people but it will be difficult in recruitment volumes come back to the market.”