Brexit Employment Risks by Occupation

A policy briefing for the Economic Impacts of Brexit on the UK, its Regions, its Cities and its Sectors research project. The project ended in 2019 and was led by Professor Raquel Ortega-Argiles.

Brexit will cause impediments to exports from the UK to the EU. These will affect UK sectors
to different extents. Some sectors sell large shares of their output to EU markets, while
others do not. These differences have an impact on the degree to which specific
occupational types of employment are exposed to trade risks associated with Brexit. Using
well-established methods based on global input-output tables (which quantify the world’s
production structure) and detailed data on employment by occupational group and
industry, we develop an occupational risk indicator.

Focusing on broad occupational groups, we find that almost 12 per cent of UK employment
of “skilled agricultural, forestry and fisheries workers” is exposed to Brexit’s export risks.
The second most exposed group are “plant and machine operators”(11 per cent). Among
the broad groups, “services and sales workers” are least exposed (3 per cent). Among
occupations defined at a more fine-grained level, employment of veterinary workers is most
exposed (36 per cent). Finally, risk levels for male and female workers are different: the risk
indicator for male employment is 8 per cent, whereas it amounts to 5 per cent for female
employment.