With all the talk of future migration only to supply skills the UK needs, I was intrigued what were those skills in short supply.

Below are extracts of the only source I could find which is the current Tier 2 shortage occupation list.

Bear in mind this list applies currently to Non-EU migrants but will apply in some form to all migrants post-Brexit

Which to my jaded eye is an indictment of UK policy on training/retraining for the last twenty years or so.


https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...ember_2015.pdf

Quite incredible we can't fulfill some or all these skills.

This is the problem I have with the Tier 2 list. I remember when the government (Labour one at the time) was using data more than 3 years out of date - the trouble is that meant the 'shortage' list was created right in the middle of a slump, but dated from a peak in demand. see the chart about half way down this link; http://www.publications.parliament.u...15.htm#note101 for the effect on opportunities that had.

Tier 2 (ICTs) visas should only be used for the purposes that it was originally created - so that middle management could come in and do work when an offshore company was negotiating.

Further such visas should only be linked to providing proper training for local workers - not wholesale replacement. I have heard of people being asked to train their replacement. The US has the same problem with it's H-1B visas.

No it isn't. Dim, or average, people can't do jobs that require a degree or two. Nor can people without particular talents do jobs that require that talent. If we don't have enough people to teach those degrees or talents - we won't produce a workforce with them. Many people will specialise in other things, and many people have no interest in, or aptitude for, sciences, or arts.. And many of the brightest people in this country follow the money into the City, or related professions - where once they headed for the Civil Service - leaving the also rans to work elsewhere. .We also have a leading global role in fields like acting, architecture and fashion - which means those people are not free for other jobs. We also lose a lot of our talent to emmigration - notably doctors , and, in many fields, the professions , or government, limit how many people can qualify. Its natural, and cheaper, to pick up on Spain and Poland's surplus of doctors, or India's computer scientists.

Its also a case of not wanting to employ the unemployable British alternative - which stretches nto low skill jobs too. You don't want innumerate, socially deficient, waiters, careless chefs, idle roadsweepers , halftrained plumbers, or farm workers who won't go out in the rain.

I'm in favour of immigration to alleviate gaps in the workforce, across the board from the most unskilled to the most highly skilled.

FoM works for industry

If it is part of a comprehensive strategy.

I despair we seem unable to have a credible program to train or retrain for some of those skills decade after decade.

Government and industry have lost the will to seriously invest in the future, and stopping immigration isn't the answer nor is a points system going to fix it if it's not paralleled by training programs.

The cry by those who want more control of immigration usually by point systems, to only allow the skills such as those at the top 2/3 of the tier 2 list in, surely removes the incentive to train the UK workforce for those skills? Well certainly if it's left to market forces.

So our unskilled workforce remain just that, and let's not kid ourselves some will never make the transition no matter what, but many could be helped.

I owe everything I gained in my career to government funded training, and due to my age some of my contemporaries gained their skills in industry.

Today neither government or industry commit the way they did, both cherry pick the overseas skills market, and kick the collective can down the road.

I doubt it is because we don't have the skilled labour to fill those jobs, it is more likely because they pay less than UK workers are willing to accept.
So they go abroad for better pay and then we have to import cheaper labour.

Like we need managers.

Back in the 1920's there was a scheme to build social housing fit for heroes of the First World War. In one borough the first scheme trained unemployed men in construction skills to build the homes, a second scheme was started with a different developer who paid workers more than the first.

The second scheme managed to pay more by not having a training programme. This meant workers from the first scheme left for higher pay, meaning the first scheme lost workers, causing delays and pushing up the cost as they had to train more workers ti fill the gaps.

Could the current shortages be down to fewer industries and smaller companies and therefore far less training schemes?

Looking at the state of the health service, is it an attractive proposition to spend 5-10 years training for? For a government is it less expensive to import trained medical staff?

Nonsense as usual from you. In the high skill sectors I work with pay levels and number of jobs in the UK are just about the highest in the world (apart from the US). There may have been a brain drain in the 80s and 90s but now the flow of talent is inwards to the UK as we can attract the brightest and the best. Or at least we could until 52% of the population started scaring people away.

The reason for shortages among British people is that not enough people are studying STEM subjects but prefer the easier life of arts and then are surprised when they struggle to find a well paid job.

Managers are useful (at least good ones are) as they look after the background crap and allow you to get on with your job.

It may be incredible but it's not surprising, training in the UK is a joke and has been for years, budgets are there but are wasted and manipulatd horribly , my firm is a classic example , new items arrive and the training is non existent or a joke yet the accounts show a huge amount set aside per annum!

Why are you surprised OP?
You cannot get everyone in any given country up to the speed of being able to do all the jobs.

Judging by the number of car washes setting up around here, there'll be a problem filling jobs. That is until there is so much competition every time a new venture is set up the market for each one will diminish. They'll start to go belly up, a few will survive and the dole queue will get longer.

europe surely must have a shortage of these skills too...poland hungary etc but they are all coming here

Or people go and find work elsewhere.

Not sure they are 'all coming here'

Poland is growing at quite a rate and I'm sure you will find a number of people going home which will cause issues for us.

Romania is also growing and looks like a good long term growth opportunity, so that could also cause problems.

However, it doesn't matter, because we are causing our own problems.

Clearly I don't exist, since for the last 30 years I have been doing a job which usually requires a degree level education but have managed with a few GCE's and one A-Level. (most people in my line are surprised that not only do I not have a degree I never went to University).

Further as we get to more technical jobs - what are you going to do with this army of people without degrees, how are they going to adjust to careers that require a lifetime of learning. Do you want to condemn them to a life of zero hour contracts, uncertainty and relative poverty?

You can train people - the first thing one requires is a wiliness to learn. In a world where skills have a short lifespan lifelong training is going to be a norm. Employers cannot expect people to have experience in technologies that are new. Which means those willing to learn those skills will be in ascendency.

Apart from the fact that the shortage occupations list amounts to little more than market manipulation by employers to reduce wages - with the compliance of government (both Labour and Conservative). The effect of allowing employers to go to the international market is to increase the supply - but remove all incentive to actually train anyone local.

I'll send them down to you, your gonna need them once we've left.

No I want. Once we leave I will be reducing my staff, although I'll be keeping my foreign employees.

My qualifications for my current role (Engineering Management) are entirely experience.

My formal qualifications are very little (2 O-levels and a 34 year old BTEC ONC) but money was invested in me to train all the time I was employed in government service, and the work experience allowed me to advance once I joined private industry fifteen years ago.

But private industry has been unwilling to pay for any further training, I get that perhaps I'm too old, but I don't see 20 some-things getting the same chances I got.

I'm surprised the various manager positions are listed, I would have thought those would be an easy win within the UK workforce, by minor investment and promotion.

The situation will not improve with continued automation and expert systems replacing people.

Has basic numeracy and literacy improved or declined in the last 20 years because that can be a huge barrier to learning and training?

The shortage in many southern European countries aren't the people with skills but the jobs for them to do. France, Spain, Italy, Greece etc have some excellent Universities but there aren't the opportunities for graduates in their home countries.

If you are a 25 year old with a PhD in biochemistry then you are going to be looking to the UK, Germany or the USA for jobs. Since more young people speak English than German and you don't need a work visa for the UK then it's clear why we are the first choice for many. Despite all this talk about "take back control" and cutting immigration I really don't see any benefit or reducing the number of scientists and engineers who want to come to work here. There presence doesn't limit the opportunities for British people but increases the size of the whole sector and creates new opportunities,.

If GSK were to announce 1000 new jobs for scientists in the UK then there aren't that many unemployed oncologists, pharmacologists , virologists and other "ologists" at the job centre so they either have to be head-hunted from other companies (who then have to replace the staff from somewhere) or the recruit from abroad.

Or post Brexit, being unable to recruit easily into the UK from abroad they develop the facility elsewhere.

And if you are Indian or from anywhere outside the EU, you'll need a visa to get a job in any of the countries you mention. Why is it the Remnants have such an opposition to visa applications?

Based on what Lost Fool has said, they'll need to recruit from abroad wherever they locate.

You won't need to, you'll be scratching around trying to recruit.

Visa applications cost time and money and put you at a competitive disadvantage to employers who don't have to go through the same red tape.

Why would I?

However because of the government's push to get more and more students in to university, it is a very effective way of reducing the youth unemployment figures, the net result has been an up-scalling of qualifications accordingly meaning that many people more than capable of doing a job don't even meet the employers requirements to gain an interview.

For example when i started my job 20 years ago the educational requirement was a minimum of a HNC/HND in telecommunications or an equivalent subject. Now I would need a minimum of a Masters in Telecommunications just to get an interview, and yet the knowledge requirements to do the job haven't changed.

A lot of employers use qualifications simply as a means of limiting the number of applicants, not because that is the educational level required to do the work.