LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network with more than 300 million members, today revealed new insights into the flow of professionals between countries around the world and the skills moving in and out of the UK.
Of the top skills flowing into the UK in 2013, the creative industries were the most represented, above finance and engineering, illustrating the UK’s position as a hub for media, publishing and creativity.
According to recent analysis of the movement of LinkedIn’s global membership, the total number of professionals coming into the UK between November 2012 and November 2013 was 132,085, while 169,742 left the country, with creative industries experiencing the biggest movement in skills.
| Rank | Skills flowing out | Skills flowing in |
| 1 | Publishing | Publishing |
| 2 | Management and Leadership | Management and Leadership |
| 3 | Engineering | Politics |
| 4 | HR | Engineering |
| 5 | Trading and Investment | HR |
The ‘Publishing’ category of skills includes creative and media roles such as journalists, graphic designers and web developers.
The data also reveals the sources and destinations for UK professionals. The rankings reveals a mix of countries where the UK has traditionally strong ties as well as emerging markets.
| Top 5 source of talent into the UK | |
| United States | |
| Spain | |
| France | |
| Australia | |
| India | |
| Top 5 destinations for UK talent |
| United States |
| Australia |
| India |
| South Africa |
| Nigeria |
David Cohen, director of LinkedIn Talent Solutions for Northern Europe commented, “This data indicates that the UK is important hub for international talent in a number of industries, particularly the creative industries, management, engineering and HR. At LinkedIn we’re working to map out the economic graph with the view to identifying more ways to create economic opportunity for the world’s workforce. New insights like this are a small step in that direction.”
The analysis, which looked at the net inflow and outflow of LinkedIn members for 20 countries also found a number of interesting global trends:
- UAE saw a strong inflow of professionals at 1.3% net gain, particularly among architecture and engineering roles. The vast majority of members who moved to the UAE (75%) came from outside of the Middle East, with India and the UK providing the biggest sources of talent. The data also shows that many members were promoted as part of their move, with 40% of members indicating a seniority of “manager” or higher in the title of their new position, perhaps a big draw for professionals to the region.
- Spain has experienced the largest net loss of 0.3%, most likely as a result of the economic challenges in recent years. Proximity to their home country appears to be an important driving factor with 60% of professionals who left Spain remaining within Europe, and the UK being the top destination. However, Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America are also a popular destination for Spanish professionals representing about 20% of those who moved.
- Germany has achieved a net gain of 0.4% showing it is one of Europe’s strongest and most resilient economies. The analysis indicates that over 60% of members moving to Germany in the past year came from another European country and that it has attracted a strong inflow of technical skills with the majority of professionals coming in to do engineering and research roles, working in the automotive and software industries.
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