The UK Home Office has announced that it has accepted the recommendations from the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) to once again revise the Shortage Occupation List, in order to restrict migrants from outside the European Economic Area to a smaller proportion of occupations within the UK labour market.

The MAC recommended that the Shortage Occupation list be reduced to cover 190,000 employees (not migrants) or well under 1 per cent of the UK workforce.

29 job titles are to be removed from the list. This include: secondary school biology teachers; consultants in obstetrics and gynaecology; paediatric surgery; nuclear medicine and paediatric dentistry and veterinary surgeons.

There are however also 33 recommended additions to the list including; consultants in emergency medicine; actuaries; specific roles within the visual effects and 2D/3D computer animation for film; television and the video games sectors; high integrity pipe welders; environmental scientists; and operations managers in the decommissioning areas of the nuclear industry and geochemists.

The implication of an occupation not being on the shortage occupation list is that employers are required to advertise the position. Where the employer can demonstrate, after advertising, that there is no suitably qualified resident or EU citizen candidate available to fill the vacancy, a sponsorship certificate can be issued to the non-EU citizen. This is done to protect the domestic labour market.

The revised list will come into effect from 14 November 2011.