For many businesses – and particularly those who trade regularly with customers or suppliers on the European mainland – this was unwelcome medicine. In the short term at least, exit from the single market is likely to exacerbate the skills shortages that continue to dog the United Kingdom, not least in the tech sector. Take a walk around London's much-vaunted Tech City area and it quickly becomes apparent that much of the human capital underpinning Britain's technology boom is drawn from overseas. And unsurprisingly many of the coders and entrepreneurs who inhabit the office blocks of the tech district are European in origin. Increased investment in technology-driven businesses will create more demand for skills that are already in short supply.

Source: Forbes January 23, 2017 18:51 UTC