The UK workforce is suffering from a significant level of brain drain with many companies at risk of losing their top talent, according to new research.
Additionally, found the study of more than 4,000 business leaders, foreign workers no longer saw the UK as a desirable destination, leaving it behind countries behind such as Estonia, Cyprus and Kuwait.
Reasons for people turning their back on the UK, according to the Institute for Management Development (IMD)’s World Competitiveness Center, range from the cost of living to perceptions that it has become isolationist and offers poor education.
The UK ranks 35th of 64 major world economies, down seven places on last year, the analysis stated.
Switzerland topped the rankings for the 10th year running.
The IMD study aims to provide insights about how the world’s leading economies educate, train, and attract their workforce.
This year’s IMD world talent ranking saw Qatar, the Czech Republic and Malaysia overtake the UK in their ability to develop and hold onto their workforce, as the top spots were dominated by its northern European neighbours. Switzerland, Luxembourg, Iceland, Belgium, and the Netherlands make up the top five.
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The research points out that the UK’s fading pull in the international labour market stems primarily from concerns about the quality of life, with its cost of living only being higher in nine other countries.
The UK’s decline in the world talent ranking was also marked by concerns about its declining educational standards, with it being ranked 50th or below for its apprenticeship programmes, employee training and pupil-teacher ratios.
The research found that the standard of the UK’s primary and secondary education was 34th of the 64 countries surveyed, down six places and behind countries including Jordan and Italy.
University education was ranked 32nd among those countries included, while rankings for business schools, at 42nd, saw the UK falling behind Estonia and Thailand.
The IMD world talent ranking evaluates the capacity of an economy to develop the skills and competencies of its domestic talent and, at the same time, to appeal to the international talent pool so it satisfies the local market’s employment demand and enhances the wider economy’s overall competitiveness.
Professor Arturo Bris, director of the IMD World Competitiveness Center, said: “The UK’s international isolation, thanks to Brexit, combining with and compounding its cost of living crisis, means that it is markedly less attractive to foreign talent, and increasingly unable to retain the well-educated and skilled people currently working there.
“Just last year, the UK’s robustness in the face of a ‘brain drain’ of highly skilled workers was a strength, but it has fallen almost 20 places on this in the last year. Our survey of executives showed negative expectations for the UK’s economy, while underinvestment in education was also a major concern for the future. Without improving education at home or making itself more attractive to talent abroad, the UK’s standing in our ranking is unlikely to improve.”
The 2023 word talent ranking studied 64 economies – including Kuwait for the first time – by quantifying 31 criteria that involve both hard data and survey responses from executives.
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