The pull of London for Britain’s highest-achieving graduates is driving a brain drain, that leaves other cities of talented workers and risks damaging growth of the overall UK economy, according to a new analysis.
More than half of Oxbridge graduates who move for work after finishing university are employed in London within six months, according to “The Great British Brain Drain; where graduates move and why”. It also found that the capital attracts 38 per cent of graduates from the prestigious Russell Group of universities who gained first-class or upper-second class degrees and then moved for a job. That is around 13 times more than Manchester, the second most popular destination.
The report, published on Monday by the Centre for Cities think-tank, found that almost one in four graduates from UK universities in 2014 and 2015 were working in London within six months of finishing their degree. This figure is boosted by London having by far the highest retention rate of students; 77 per cent were working there six months after graduating from universities in the capital.
London’s dominance of the economy is a concern to ministers because of worries that it reduces the dynamism of other regions to the detriment of the economy overall.
A variety of policy initiatives — including current government moves to formulate a new economic and industrial strategy and former chancellor George Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse vision — are seeking to provide a counterweight to London and raise the UK’s overall economic performance in the process.
The Centre for Cities report, based on Office for National Statistics, Census and Higher Education Statistics Agency data, says graduates moving from one region to another made up one-fifth of all population movement in England and Wales in 2014 and contribute to the shift from non-urban areas to cities.
Despite the pull of London, most university cities experience a brain gain because they attract more graduates to their city than the number the number of graduates who grew up there but now work elsewhere.
However, they fail to retain the majority of the students who move to their city to study owing to what the report calls “bouncers” — those who come from elsewhere and leave after graduation.
The report also looked at movement by older degree holders, aged 31 and over. In 2010-11, the places that gained most were London, Slough and Worthing. And of those that left London, 69 per cent remained in the south east.
The report lists a wide range of existing graduate-retention initiatives across the UK, including wage subsidies. But Centre for Cities says such schemes are not addressing the root cause of the graduate brain drain.
Graduates, it says, choose where to move based primarily on relative economic attractiveness and career opportunities. So cities — and government — need to focus on strengthening economies and boosting economic growth by investing in large-scale housing and transport projects, innovation and enterprise.
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