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The North East is suffering a serious ‘brain drain’, with thousands of qualified workers shunning the region for London, a report has found.

Compiled by Homes for the North, the findings reveal that the North in general has a problem retaining graduates.

Alarmingly, around 75,500 British graduates have left over the last decade.

But the research shows that the North East is suffering from the phenomenon particularly badly and there are warnings it could seriously damage the local economy.

The report warns: “In short, growing an area’s economy cannot be done by just increasing investment.

“For it to be sustained, something must also be done to ensure the area has a good population of highly skilled labour.”

To compete with London in terms of numbers, Tyne and Wear would need more than double the number of graduate workers it currently has.

The study also found that ‘the rest of the North East’ has a bigger deficit of qualified workers than anywhere in the country.

The problem is partly mitigated by the flow of highly qualified immigrants moving into the area, particularly in the 18-34 demographic.

However, as the UK’s departure from the European Union looms, the inflow which masks the area’s inability to retain qualified workers risk being cut off.

Should the eventual settlement with European Union restrict free movement, the North East could face an even bigger skills gap.

In percentage terms, Tyne and Wear has a negative gap between people arriving and people leaving of 0.49% - and for the rest of the North East, it’s 4.74%, the highest in the country.

The report found that London was the most likely destination for British graduates from the North East, followed by Leeds.

Commenting on the report, Chi Onwurah, MP for Newcastle Central MP , said: “In my career as an engineer before I was an MP, people would tell me how much they loved studying in Newcastle and that they wanted to stay but couldn’t find the jobs.

“That’s always concerned me - that we have great universities in the region with great student satisfaction ratings but then they can’t get the jobs afterwards.

“We need a proper industrial strategy to support re-balancing and growth in key sectors like digital and clean energy.

“And we need to attract the best people as well as retaining people and if there are more stringent controls on freedom of movement then that clearly reduces the supply of people coming here.”

The report also looks at ways of making the Northern Powerhouse competitive with London and the South.

It argues that, given that there is more affordable housing in the region than in London, it identifies this as a key way of convincing younger graduates to stay and to attract others from elsewhere.

Homes for the North is an alliance of 19 housing associations who raise awareness about housing issues across the region.