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Visas for deckhands are available to enter the UK due to a shortage. Thibault Camus/AFP
Deckhands and vent chick sexers may not immediately spring to mind as the skilled jobs that the UK is looking to recruit from abroad but shortages have seen them join the list.
In the choppy post Brexit waters, with the shutters having fallen down for many EU workers looking to find jobs in the UK, a list of skilled occupations where workers are still welcome has been updated by the government.
In the post-Brexit landscape the one notable removal from the list has been chefs – that could humorously be seen as a nod to British food.
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Where there are shortages, skilled workers from around the globe are wanted by the UK in the Shortage Occupation List (SOL).
Many of the new vacancies now included on the list are not surprising, including a wide variety of health and care professionals. While foreign language teachers have been added to the list of workers needed in secondary education.
Others jobs for which visas will be given are less expected.
The UK minister for future borders and immigration, Kevin Foster, has taken on a recommendation from the government's Migration Advisory Committee to offer visas for deckhands on large fishing vessels and vent chick sexers.
"We are also accepting the MAC's recommendation to recognise deckhands on large (nine meter plus) fishing vessels and vent chick sexers as meeting the skills threshold for the skilled worker route, where they have three years' relevant experience," Foster wrote in a published letter.
"Although these jobs will not be included on the SOL, they will become eligible for skilled worker visas where a sponsoring employer is offering a salary of at least £25,600 ($35,588) in line with other non-shortage occupations."
Vent chick sexers are also needed by the UK with skilled worker visas given out. /MIXA /Getty
What a chick sexer's job involves may lead to a few blank expressions, but it is typically well-paid and shortages are probably down to the work - checking the anuses of chicks to see what sex they are.
Foster said that due to the rapid changes in the UK labor market the government would not be making "wide scale changes to the SOL relating to medium-skilled occupations which have only recently become eligible for skilled worker visas."
He added: "Nevertheless, we consider this should not stand in the way of routine changes relating to occupations which were previously eligible, or the particular recruitment needs faced by the health and social care sector at this extremely challenging time."
