Should the United Kingdom decide to leave the European Union in this Thursday’s referendum many skilled professionals may leave the UK in flight of the uncertain economic future and in search of better job opportunities. As Stephen Hawkins has announced in his statement about Brexit, the UK stands to lose important research funding if it chooses to exit the EU. Therefore, it will likely experience a decrease in scientific research and innovative progress, going hand in hand with the reduced inflow of EU and international university students and the loss of employment opportunities for high skilled professionals. However, an interesting question to ask then is: ‘Where will those skilled professionals go?’.
The growing economies of Asia present viable choices for many skilled labourers to make a comfortable living. Especially China and India, countries which until quite recently were considered to face the issues of Brain Drain as high-skilled workers were leaving these countries to work in Western developed nations, have in the past years started to reverse this process. As their economies become more prosperous, technological progress opens up plenty of opportunities for employment of the highly-skilled. Many professionals who formerly chose to leave their home behind are deciding to return and this process is likely to be sped up should Britain face economic hardship following a Brexit.
As the UK currently has one of the largest group of Chinese living abroad in Europe, with nearly half a million people, and Indians present the UK’s largest foreign born minority population since 2015 with 1.5 million, an increasing outflow of skilled-professionals from these backgrounds will be perceptible and likely painful.
Equally, British born professionals may decide to immigrate to these and other Asian nations such as Singapore, which are lacking high-skilled workers to further their economic and technological progress. Earlier this year it was published that the four Asian nations of South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong are continuing to outperform other countries in national education system rankings, while China has continuously shown the greatest improvements in their higher education rating. These facts may draw academic professionals and university students to resettle to Asian countries.
Lastly, there are the usual destinations for skilled workers, which are likely to see increasing requests from the UK, should emigration increase due to a Brexit vote. The most popular destinations for UK emigrants are Australia and the US, but Germany, France, Canada and the Scandinavian countries could also be feasible choices as more professionals decide to leave the country.
Read more about why skilled professionals may leave the UK post EU Referendum
To get more information on the upcoming referendum and its’ possible effects read our features on:
Supporters line-up for ‘Remain’ and ‘Leave’
Schedule for the vote count night
Markets beyond the EU referendum
