Britain must be doing something right to attract all this talent

The predicted growth in UK population is against the European trend. Is it because of our language?

Within the developed world, the US, Canada, Australia and the UK are the only large economies where the number of workers is expected to rise, in the UK by around 10 per cent, the others by rather more (Getty)

How will we fit them in? That is probably most people’s reaction to the forecast that the UK population will rise by almost 10 million in the next 25 years, and it will certainly be a challenge to build the homes and the infrastructure to support such an increase. It is equivalent to another London, and then some.

First, stand back and consider what a remarkable thing this is. How has the UK become such a magnet for talent? Our fertility rate is at the top end of the European scale, but births will only account for about one-third of the projected increase. The rest will be from inward migration and it is right to use the word “talent” because the majority of the migrants will be bringing skills into the country.

If you doubt that we are a magnet for talent, note this: the Government is seeking to restrict the number of highly skilled people who want to come in from outside the European Union. This is causing dismay among the high-tech employers, 235 of whom have just written an open letter to the Prime Minister asking him to reconsider plans that will make it even harder for them to employ non-EU workers. The politics of this are obvious and the debate becomes distasteful, so let’s simply observe that there are a lot of highly skilled Americans, Canadians, Australians and so on who would like to work here.

However, the United States, Canada, Australia and the rest of the Anglosphere are also magnets. I have been looking at some projections by the United Nations for the changing size of the workforce over the next 35 years. The size of the workforce, assuming that it is educated and trained, is a key driver of economic growth. Within the developed world, the US, Canada, Australia and the UK are the only large economies where the number of workers is expected to rise, in the UK by around 10 per cent, the others by rather more. By contrast, in France there is a small decline, but massive ones in Germany, Italy and most of eastern Europe. Japan suffers most of all, with a fall of more than 30 per cent.

These are just projections and things can change. If people delay retirement, the number of workers correspondingly climbs. I don’t know what assumptions the UN makes for immigration into Germany, but the migration this year, if sustained at anything like the present level, will make a material impact on the overall size of the German population, as well as the size of the country’s workforce.

But if you accept the figures, there does seem to be some sort of economic advantage – or at least attraction – that the English-speaking world has over continental Europe and Japan. It is not just that it looks as if the UK might pass Germany to become Europe’s most populous country. The workforce of the English-speaking developed world grows, whereas that of the non-English-speaking world shrinks, if you count Scandinavia as honorary members of the Anglosphere.

It is worth noting, a separate issue, that the number of workers in India is projected to grow by around 50 per cent by 2050, but in China it is expected to shrink by 10 per cent. That is the context of the ending of China’s one-child policy announced last week. It looks like India’s population will pass that of China in about 15 years’ time.

It is possible that the IT revolution has tilted the world towards English. It is of course the principal language of the internet

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So, why should this shift within the developed world be happening? Surely it cannot just be the ability to speak English. It may have something to do with business culture, and it is true that English-speaking countries attract a disproportionate share of inward investment. It may be too that there is some modest regulatory or legal advantage that the English-speaking world has managed to sustain. Business start-up rates are higher and it may be easier to do business in general.

It is a rather mechanical ranking but for what it is worth the latest World Bank study, “Doing Business 2016”, has Singapore at the top, followed by New Zealand, with the UK at number six and US at seven. Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, the only member of the eurozone, are all in the top 10. You could deduce that while being in the EU is not a disadvantage, being in the eurozone does not bring any clear benefit to the ease of doing business.

It is possible that the IT revolution has tilted the world towards English. It is of course the principal language of the internet, with more than 55 per cent of the most visited websites having homepages in English. Even before the internet, it dominated the entertainment industry and has become the universal language of scientific papers. Nearly all the top 20 universities in the world are in the Anglosphere.

But there is still an unexplained element. We must be doing something right to be such a magnet, but pinning that down is tough indeed. Whatever it is, we will have to try to offer a good life to a lot more people in future.