Warning skilled Brits are moving abroad due to stifling UK costs
HARD pressed skilled workers are deserting the UK in droves to work overseas due to declining job prospects and high prices, a survey showed yesterday.
The poll of 5,600 Brit emigrants working overseas shows a large proportion – almost 40 per cent – are working as skilled technicians with a further 23 per cent classed as self-employed entrepreneurs.
Conservative MP Dominic Raab, who commissioned the survey conducted by Global Visas, said: “These trends are economically and socially debilitating. The squeezed middle are increasingly among those searching for a better life abroad.
“That is economically draining because they are net contributors of tax, and provide skills the economy needs.”
Among the study’s findings, 40 per cent polled said they left the UK primarily because of better job prospects overseas. Just over a fifth said they left because of the cost of living in Britain.
Australia was the top destination for Brits leaving the country.
Around 321,000 left Britain to live abroad last year, according to Office for National Statistics figures.
This is 30,000 lower than the year before.