George Magnus (senior economic advisor at UBS) writes in this month’s BA Business Life about skilled migrants – how the people arriving in the UK these days are often not escaping poor countries – but rather are “simply choosing to work in countries other than those of their birth”.

I am a case in point. I left Ireland and a good job with IBM in Dublin to come to the UK ten years ago. How time flies. I was actually aiming for South Africa and ended up in Milton Keynes. But that’s another story. A decade later, I’m still here (not in MK though – Henley is much nicer) and, I’d like to think, have contributed quite a bit to the UK Exchequer in that time. I appear to have missed out on the Celtic Tiger – much to my mother’s dismay. That's the ecomomic boom - not the Michael Flatley show. I am quite glad to say I missed that one.

I’m not the only one that is attracted to the bright lights of the UK: my brother texted to say he was sitting next to Damien Duff on the plane last night. See? We have our part to play. Even if it is for Chelsea. They paid £17m for him so he must count as 'skilled'.

George Magnus continues: the UN reckons “of the world’s 200 million migrants in 2005, roughly one third moved from one developing country to another. Moreover, almost half of those migrants aged 25 and over coming into OECD countries in the last 15 years, were highly skilled. In the UK, it is highly probable that immigration is largely responsible for raising the country’s potential growth rate from about 2.7 per cent to about 3 per cent”.

Intrigued, I did a a bit of digging and found a fascinating site with a section on the Highly Skilled Migrant Program. I particularly like the area where you can read about Commons debates and uncovered an enlightening exchange between MP's about Women, Justice and Gender Equality from International Women's Day on the 8th March. Good to know while I was having breakfast, lunch and dinner that day in the company of some fine women and celebrating success, our elected representatives were busy grappling with the more serious issues. We've come a long way but we've got so much more to do. And as a 'skilled' migrant I'm more than happy to contribute to the debate and perhaps even change the world.