UK tech and information security experts have warned the government that restricting immigration unnecessarily post-Brexit will only harm an industry still struggling to attract enough talent.
The comments were made in response to the home secretary’s commissioning of a Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to investigate the impact of Brexit on the UK labor market and “how the UK’s immigration system should be aligned with a modern industrial strategy”.
The government plans to place restrictions on the free flow of movement following the UK’s departure from the EU, with Amber Rudd claiming the sharp rise in net migration from the continent and beyond has “given rise to public concern about pressure on public services and wages”.
“In future, we will be able to apply different immigration rules and requirements according to the UK’s economic and social needs at the time,” she continued in the letter commissioning the MAC.
Industry body TechUK’s deputy CEO, Antony Walker, said the MAC study is vitally important, given that the volume of EU tech applicants has already dropped by 10%.
He called for an “open, flexible EU immigration system post-Brexit”.
“The tech sector is creating jobs faster than we can fill them, and for every ten high skilled roles, the sector creates four more jobs elsewhere in the economy,” Walker added.
“Our ability to create the jobs of the future is directly tied to our ability to recruit the best and brightest from across the EU and the world. Overly focusing on numbers of immigrants will not help our economy or innovative tech businesses. We would not tell factories how many tractors to produce each year, and so the MAC report should not seek to do the same to talent and skills.”
Michael Kent, founder of online remittance service Azimo, argued that the economy couldn’t survive without the skills of foreign workers.
“This contribution benefits and enriches us all; professionally and personally,” he added. “If we want the UK to remain competitive, particularly in the face of Brexit, then the government should be doing everything it can to motivate and unify the workforce – and not cause divisions within it.”
The cybersecurity industry has long had a problem attracting talent in enough numbers to fill the expanding number of roles available. The Global Information Security Workforce Study (GISWS) released in February warned that the UK was facing a skills “cliff edge” as older professionals retire without newer candidates to take their jobs.
Two-thirds of UK respondents said they have too few cybersecurity personnel, with 47% arguing that’s because of a lack of qualified applicants.
In January, a report from jobs site Indeed revealed that the UK had the second biggest cybersecurity skills gap globally after Israel.