The UK is falling behind other major countries when it comes to attracting highly skilled foreign workers, according to new data from Indeed.
It attracts only 21% of foreign clicks on UK jobs for higher salary roles (between £35,200 and £91,000 per year), according to the job site, while France attracts 36% and the Netherlands 35%.
The UK gets the second lowest share of candidates looking at higher-paid roles, only behind Spain. This suggests that visa routes aimed at attracting high-calibre foreign workers are not proving effective.
However, although 35% of employers identified legal red tape as a significant challenge to hiring workers from outside the UK, 41% agreed that current immigration policies would support their efforts to recruit workers from abroad.
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The jobs in the UK that have seen the biggest rise in interest from overseas workers tended to be in middle- and lower-paid roles, including food preparation and service, and retail.
Overall foreign interest in UK jobs remained strong, however. International searches for jobs accounted for 4.9% of total searches in July 2024, a 54% increase compared to pre-Brexit and pre-pandemic share of 3.2% in 2019.
This is even greater than foreign interest in jobs in the European Union, which has risen 29% to 3.1% of total searches from 2.4% in 2019.
British workers show a keen interest in working abroad, Indeed found. Almost two-thirds (62%) said they would like to work overseas.
However, Indeed’s research found that almost half (47%) of employers did not offer employees the opportunity to work overseas, and 42% did not have a working abroad policy in place.
Motivations for British workers seeking work abroad include a sense that they will get a better quality of life (54%), improved weather (33%) and a lower cost of living (33%).
A fifth of workers think their career prospects will improve if they move abroad, while 54% believe their income would increase, Indeed found.
Data from Indeed also showed that small countries that are “economically open” and appear to offer a high standard of living attract a much larger proportion of foreign jobseekers.
Luxembourg attracts the most foreign candidates relative to the size of its labour market, for example, with 77% of job searches coming from abroad.
Other countries that attracted a high number of foreign job searches included Oman, Kuwait, Switzerland and Qatar.
Pawel Adrjan, director of EMEA and APAC economic research at Indeed, said countries had much to gain by meeting the changing needs of labour markets.
“Indeed data shows that while there’s been a surge in foreign interest in UK roles, the country falls behind other Western nations in attracting highly skilled workers, which is at odds with the government’s current immigration policy,” he said.
“As borders become less relevant for workers, businesses and states must offer not only competitive salaries but also attractive living conditions, high-performing healthcare and education systems, and political and economic stability. Immigration policies must align with these efforts.”
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