The Association for Consultancy and Engineering is calling for Government to lower the financial sponsorship conditions for employers in the built environment sector needing to recruit overseas graduates to fill skill shortages. This action by ACE is in direct response to members feeding back that the new immigration Visa sponsorship salary level of £38,000 is too expensive, with some firms already deciding to stop sponsoring overseas graduates altogether.

Kate Jennings, ACE’s Chief Executive Officer said, “By creating expensive barriers to recruitment, the Government is reducing the competitiveness of our sector. While our members welcome the continued and planned increase in funding for UK home-grown upskilling through training schemes and apprenticeships, there is a lead time for their impact to be felt and more still needs to be done to address current short-term skills shortages. Reducing the visa sponsorship salary level and continuing to support UK training and apprenticeship initiatives will lay the foundations for the skilled workforce needed for the future.

“This is an important issue for our members because with less UK students choosing to go to University and staying for the full course and similarly the completion rate on apprenticeships being 13% lower than Government expectations, there is still a short-term shortage of skilled talent needed to deliver the UK’s infrastructure plans for growth,” Kate added.

ends