Back to Basque: northern Spaniards returning home from UK for work

Between the years of 2010 to around 2014, a slight but noticeable change began to occur on the streets of British towns and cities. Tapas restaurants – previously a rare sight outside of London – were soon popping up everywhere, while rapid-fire conversations held in Spanish could soon be heard on street corners up and down the country…

Spain’s tough economic climate at the time prompted thousands of young Spaniards to take advantage of their English skills and head to the UK to try their hand at the – comparatively – stronger job market.

Since then, thousands have made the UK their home, while a growing number have begun to return to Spain now that the Spanish economy is stronger.

Some regions in particular are beginning to benefit from this returnee trend.

The Basque region in the north of Spain was hit hard during the recession, and while the region is renowned as something of a hotbed for tech and innovation (despite being only 4% of the population the region is home to 40% of Spain’s aerospace sector, for example), there simply were not enough jobs to go around in those long credit crunch years.

But now, many of the highly skilled Spaniards who moved to the UK to study, conduct research and start businesses are now planning their return – which could present something of a brain-drain headache for the UK, particularly with Brexit now on the horizon.

Ivan Jimanez, head of Bizkaia Talent – an organisation that aims to nurture, train and market Basque employment talent – says that there has been a steep uptick in Basques looking to return to Spain.

“What I see clearly is that Brexit is accelerating the process to come back,” said Jimanez. “Even if people have already thought about it, those people who have been in the UK for eight to ten years are now saying OK, that’s enough.

“For us it is an opportunity, with the industries we have and the skills that we need. We didn’t want this problem, but we have it. We want Basque professionals to be with us.”

As many as 32,000 academics from the EU but working in the UK are now seriously planning to move elsewhere, a report by the University and College Union has found.