Within the next decade the highly skilled workforce alone will be short a quarter of a million 

Hamburg, February 24, 2020 – A Report by Statista has found that by 2030 the UK won’t have enough university graduates to fulfil demand of highly skilled workers. With demand currently being just met, within the next decade, the UK will be short of 250.000 highly skilled workers alone. 

With the overall average age increasing there are more and more pensioners needing to be replaced by young graduates. An estimated five million workers with higher education will leave the workforce for retirement in the next decade. At the same time innovation and digitization are shifting the demand of skilled labor. With more than 50% of the younger generation earning a university degree, compared to 36% in their parent’s generation, the UK has been investing in the future of its labor market. But the structural change towards a services-oriented industry is outpacing education.  

Even though the share of the UK population born abroad has more than doubled, from 6% to 13%, in the last 17 years, the UK is currently just meeting the demand of workers with higher education. By 2030 about a third of lower skilled workers will have left their current occupation due to automation. While the UK, Germany and Canada will all have run out of highly skilled personnel, countries like Italy and Mexico will be experiencing an already growing oversupply. Since the Nineties and the onset of globalization, many countries adjusted policies and increased immigration. Workers' mobility will become one of the most effective ways to tackle a shortage of workforce. And increased migration rates for highly needed professions will be needed to outweigh the missing manpower from within the country. With the recent restrictive policies on worker immigration the UK might be getting in its own way.  

 As most countries in the European Union are considered high-income countries, the restructuring of their economies towards services and away from manufacturing is causing a lot of pressure for some. The United Kingdom, with its dependence on the financial hub in London and its large services sector, is much more dependent on highly skilled workers than many others within the EU. While economies like Italy and France will be seeing increased demand of highly skilled workers by 2030, they are and will be experiencing oversupply and thus unemployment of university graduates.  

Downloads 

Factsheet Statista
Graphics
Labour Shortage DossierPlus

About Statista 

Founded in Germany in 2007, Statista has about 700 employees at twelve office locations on four continents. Statista is a leading data and business intelligence portal which conducts international market and consumer studies as well as surveys. The business model "data as a service" is unique with no direct competitors in the market. 

Contact 

Anne Proch | press@statista.com | +1 646 905 00 29 | +44 (20) 81896949