One in ten of Britain’s best workers have been lured from the UK in a brain drain and been replaced by low skilled migrants, research has found.

The country’s most highly skilled workers are emigrating because they can earn more money and enjoy better standards of living overseas, according to University College London.

But in their place the UK has attracted more than two million migrants with low numeracy skills, the report concluded. There are now an estimated 4.7 million Britons living abroad and, on average, more than 300,000 a year leave the UK, the report said.