Government to reveal how many skilled workers will be granted entry in 2011

Likely to be at the higher end of the cap recommended last week by the Migration Advisory Committee

The government is set to reveal the maximum number of skilled workers - including IT staff - that will be granted visas to work in the UK next year.

Home Secretary Theresa May is due to make the announcement later today. But the BBC reports that the number of so-called Tier 1 and Tier 2 visas - which relate to skilled and highly skilled workers - will be around 43,000.

That would place it at the higher end of the cap recommended last week by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), which had been asked to investigate what limits on skilled worker visas would be needed for the government to meet its stated aim of reducing overall immigration numbers to tens of thousands each year.

Nevertheless, it will be 25 per cent lower than this year's level. That prospect has appalled some business leaders.

Last week, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath said: "There is great concern that the way in which the current cap is operating is doing real damage not just to British business and industry but to the arts and academia."

Even Professor David Metcalf, chairman of the MAC, acknowledged in his report last week, the skilled workers that enter the UK each year "have a small positive impact per head". Nor did they add to some of the other economic problems associated in some quarters with overall migration.

The Tiered system for work visas makes distinctions between skilled workers applying for entry without a job offer - Tier 1 - and those with a job offer - Tier 2.

It also uses a point-based system, so that a non-EU worker transferring from within a multinational company to a job in the UK - so-called intra-company transfers - is more likely to receive a visa than one coming to an entirely new job.