Brexit put the spotlight on talent mobility. Here are the global markets winning - and losing - the war for technical talent.

Talent mobility, or the ease with which the right people with the right skills can flow to where the relevant opportunities exist, is important to a successful economy. It affects all industries, from finance and farming to manufacturing and marketing.

In today’s connected economy, it’s never been easier for people to discover new opportunities in the next city, another country, or on the other side of the world. At the same time, Governments  and business leaders worldwide are competing to attract skilled workers who can be the driving force behind innovation and economic growth. Both sides of this relationship rely on data to inform their choices, and the availability of that data is increasing.

Today the World Economic Forum releases its latest Human Capital Report, measuring the ability of the world’s nations to mobilise their workforces efficiently to create economic value. LinkedIn contributed data insights to the report based on the activity and profile updates of our 433 million members worldwide.

One area the report looks at is which countries are winning when it comes to one of the most critical areas of growth in the modern economy: technical skills. Using LinkedIn data, we’re able to see the countries attracting talent in this area, and those seeing a net outflow.

It's very much a global snapshot, with the most successful countries representing Asia Pacific,  South America, and the Middle East. Conversely, two of the three countries losing tech talent are in Europe, with Canada making up the balance. Without the advantage of being part of the EU, the UK now faces a future standing on a more even playing field with these international markets.

The outlook isn’t overly promising.

Of the 130 countries in the WEF’s  report, the UK is ranked at 19. France, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Slovenia, Norway, Switzerland and many other European countries rank above the UK when it comes to creating economic value from their workforces. (As a small consolation, English football fans might be interested to note that Iceland comes just after the UK at number 20.)

There are some straightforward ways that different groups in the UK and worldwide can take advantage of these insights:

• For professionals exploring potential career moves, they can see where in the world their skills are most in-demand, or which skills they may want to consider investing in
• For business leaders, having insight into where pools of specific skills exist can help inform business investment decisions, for example where to set up new centres of operation
• For policymakers, this data offers a timely snapshot of where talent is flowing which could point to success measures for specific policies and incentives, or signs that more work is needed

This is the first time that this sort of data has been available in near real-time, at this scale, and in this much level of detail, even down to the specific skills, level of qualification and work experience of professionals joining and leaving these markets.

This is just the latest effort in LinkedIn’s ongoing project to map the world's first Economic Graph, and we’re excited to continue working on projects like this one to explore more ways of applying our data insights to create economic opportunity for the global workforce.

How has your career or business benefited from the global movement of talent? Please share in the comments.