New research by professional services and outsourcing company, Harvey Nash, highlights how the UK would lose GBP54.3 billion a year without the assistance of professional and managerial workers from overseas.

The study, conducted jointly with economic think-tank, the Centre for Economic and Business Research and published at this years' CBI Conference, clearly shows that the UK is now heavily dependent on its migrants to the tune of GBP54.3 billion - the figure attributed directly to them in terms of additional value added to the economy. The benefits of inward migration extend not only to plugging skills gaps, but also by the value added by migrants spending their cash in the UK on consumer items - known as the "multiplier effect".

The report reveals the true extent to which the health of the UK economy relies on high-quality professional workers from abroad and how this benefits London in terms of increasing the pool of foreign talent upon which much of the Financial Services industry is based.

Albert Ellis, Chief Executive of Harvey Nash said:

"The sheer size of the contribution foreign skilled workers make to the UK economy in purely financial terms is quite unexpected. The UK benefits from migration by more than GBP50 billion each year, a figure expected to grow in the years ahead. Economic migration has many detractors, but clearly what we are seeing here is unquestionably positive and beneficial to the UK as a whole. In fact, the UK could not do without its influx of economic migrants."

He continued, "This trend is positive in so many ways - migrants employed by UK businesses are mainly in the Technology and Financial Services sectors. The skills and knowledge they bring are crucial in driving growth and in many cases innovation in some of our most successful companies. Secondly, migrants indirectly support around 200,000 other jobs by spending their wages in the UK, creating further "multiplier" effects."

"In general, several sectors - the NHS for example - would cease to operate effectively without the help of migrant workers. The NHS takes many thousands of migrants as workers - over 30% of NHS nursing roles are held by recent migrants to the UK. So the effect we are seeing is not a temporary blip - the UK is vastly dependent on its migrants to sustain its steady economic growth and will be for the foreseeable future".

A summary of the research report can be found at www.harveynash.com or at www.cbi.org.uk