More than half of Britain’s mid-size technology companies feel they are at risk from losing skilled employees, according to new research commissioned by leading insurance company Zurich.

And this concern about losing valuable staff rises to 70 per cent amongst UK companies with an annual turnover of £25-£100m. Zurich’s research also reveals that companies in this sector rank attracting staff with the right skills as their greatest area of risk. But the good news is that despite these challenges, more than three quarters of them say they feel more optimistic about the future than they did last year.

The new Technology Hazard Warning Report is an in-depth study of owner-managers within the mid-market sector – companies with a £5m-300m turnover – combined with qualitative analysis that highlights the key concerns for UK technology companies and, most importantly, the opportunities and challenges they face in the years ahead. When questioned about growth strategy – against a backdrop of rapidly increasing IT salaries - competition for skilled employees is again shown to be a concern with nearly half saying that retention is their top priority. For smaller companies, the biggest issue for growth strategy is the need to keep up with technological evolution. 49 per cent listed this as their top growth priority.

Apparently 39 per cent of companies say they feel highly exposed to technological advances. Some are worried about the wheel and others think this fire business really could sink them. In smaller companies, almost half say that technology evolution is a real threat to their business. Another 21 per cent say that working with emerging markets such as China and India is the biggest opportunity for their business over the next year; second only to innovation of their own products or services But, 44 per cent of larger companies feel highly exposed to the risks associated with emerging markets, specifically the varying regulatory and operational requirements.