The
UK will lead the growth in offshore outsourcing across Europe over the next 10
years, according to Forrester Research.
The
firm predicts that the total number of UK jobs expected to go offshore by 2015
is 760,000 – equivalent to 3 per cent of the workforce.
Technology
will be the most popular function to be outsourced, with 150,000 IT jobs and
100,000 IT orientated clerical jobs moving offshore – more than in Germany,
France or Italy.
Financial
firms will account for 350,000 of the jobs transferred from the UK, some 30 per
cent of the total, by 2015.
The
UK will outsource a similar level of its IT and business functions as the US,
but offshore outsourcing will be much less common in the rest of Europe.
Germany,
France and Italy are each expected to lose about 140,000 jobs by 2015, while
Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal, will lose less than 1 per cent of their
jobs offshore, placing them at an economic disadvantage compared to the UK.
