By Claudia Beal
‘UK EXODUS? Why Brits are LEAVING in 2025’
‘My Friends are Leaving the UK. Should I Go Too?’
‘Why So Many Brits are Leaving the UK’
‘WHY MORE PEOPLE ARE LEAVING THE UK – AND SO AM I’
‘The Great British Brain Drain.’
‘UK Brain Drain: Why do young people want to leave the UK?’
The final headline there is one I saw a few months ago on a YouTube clip. Shortly after relocating back to Britain myself, I thought I had escaped the ‘brain drain’ conversations. Instead, there seem to be rising concerns online that Brits are desperate to leave the UK and are being headhunted overseas for their skills and education – a concern that the future of Britain doesn’t want to stick around.
‘Brain Drain,’ or human capital flight, is what occurs when a large portion of skilled people leave their country, and, importantly, there is no one left to fill the gap.
Emigration statistics from the UK’s Office for National Statistics show that as of December 2024, 517,000 people left the country. In the same year, 852,000 people arrived with the intention of a long-term stay for non-visitation reasons. Net migration is estimated to be somewhere between 335,000 and 431,000. This is far from the highest emigration figure in recent history in early 2020, though emigration has increased in the last two years. 183,000 work visas were granted. 414,000 student visas were granted. 71,000 family visas were granted, albeit with a minimum income required of £29,000. Emigration statistics do not consider the reason for emigrating; they only record whether the person emigrating was a British citizen, an EU citizen, or a Non-EU citizen, and do not clarify the case for those of dual citizenship. In any case, 77,000 British citizens left the UK in 2024.
Is that a particularly large number of people leaving, and are they considered ‘skilled workers?’ Citizenship doesn’t determine this factor. 668,000 people who arrived in 2024 (78% of those intending to stay in the UK) are either skilled, learning skills through education, or are bringing an income into the British economy. The UK is still attracting many skilled people, to the point where the UK market is flooded with highly qualified people seeking limited opportunities, a particular concern for students after they graduate.
When I asked some students about their migration intentions in the future, I received thirteen responses. Two out of the nine students living in the UK said that they would ‘definitely not’ or ‘probably not’ be living in the UK. Only one UK resident believed brain drain was an issue, compared to all three respondents from New Zealand, which is, unsurprisingly, where I first heard this term.
For the purposes of this dataset, I will be defining a ‘UK resident’ as anyone who considers themselves to be living in the UK, rather than the legal definition. Three out of the four respondents who did not live in the UK were considering moving there, with one studying in the country and the other two not. Most commonly cited drawbacks to the UK by residents who are considering moving overseas were the cost of living, agreed by all, as well as the current political climate and job opportunities. Interestingly, two out of the three respondents interested in moving to the UK cited job opportunities as a reason to immigrate. Of the three who said they would not recommend living in the UK, all were UK residents.
From this small survey, it would appear that while most UK residents don’t intend on leaving, they have similar concerns. Some believed that the local infrastructure was underfunded, the politics were described as ‘hostile’ and unstable, particularly pointing to issues of racism. Lastly, there were concerns about immigration, with one UK respondent commenting on the lack of visa options, including how it is more difficult to attain one.
The issue, instead, is perhaps the amount of wealth leaving the UK. A Guardian article by Lauren Almeida, published in July, assesses ‘The Flight of the Non-Doms.’ A ‘Non-Dom’ is someone from another country living in the UK who has assets, rents, or stocks overseas. For two hundred and twenty-five years those items were exempt from tax in Britain. The Labour government has furthered plans by the previous government to change the system by subjecting overseas assets to the 40% inheritance tax. As a result, some high-profile billionaires have left the UK for good. Almeida spoke to an advisor for some of these individuals, Sean Cockburn, who admits that while some people are leaving, most are choosing to stay. These taxes contributed almost nine billion pounds in 2023.
So, is there a crisis? In the UK, there are a few, but a ‘brain drain’ is probably not the largest. There were 2.9 million national students in the 23/24 academic year, with a further 732,000 international students coming here for education, as well as thousands of skilled workers arriving from overseas every year. This doesn’t include the many people across the country and arriving who have/attained apprenticeships, or the locals who have created a career outside of the university route. In contrast, the UK is one of the largest contributors to brain drain from outside nations. Articles in the BBC highlight several African and Middle Eastern nations struggling to retain their educated population.
As mentioned earlier, New Zealand is struggling with a brain drain to Australia. Both of these examples are supported by mainstream news outlets and statistics. There is also talk of another brain drain, not of people leaving the UK but of people moving around inside it. Wales’ working population is decreasing, young people in Northern Ireland are leaving, and cities in the North are losing people to the South, specifically London.
However, on a populist news site like The Daily Mail, Boris Johnson claimed last year that ‘we’re in the grip of a 1970’s-style brain drain,’ and other headlines read that teachers were ‘quitting their jobs in droves’ to earn double abroad. While less populist, The Telegraph is filled with similar, more recent headlines. A few months prior, Nigel Farage similarly warned of a UK brain drain.
There also appears to be a conflation on the internet that departing Brits and departing knowledge are intrinsically linked – they are not. Yet the arriving immigrants from outside the UK are frequently assumed to be on benefits or working low-wage jobs. The term ‘brain drain’ becomes an easy blame, a Trojan horse for those who oppose new taxes on wealth or immigration. It refuses to address key factors such as low salaries, an overblown job market, or failing infrastructure. The improvement of which might keep the people who are leaving from doing so.
Brain Drain is a real issue in several countries, and there are real issues in Britain – particularly when it comes to job opportunities and the sheer cost of living in popular areas like London. This supposed epidemic of people leaving isn’t as grievous as some make it sound. This is something that most people here recognise, there’s just an unfortunately vocal group who claim otherwise.
Image: Anete Lusina on Unsplash