The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) of the Home Office revised its list of occupations and skills that are in short supply in UK, which enables employers to recruit skilled workers from India and other countries outside the European Union.

The revised list includes skilled chefs, secondary school teachers of Maths and Sciences, consultants and senior specialist nurses, some engineering occupations, including civil and chemical engineers.

The recommendations made by the committee are usually accepted by the government.

People from the Indian restaurant industry recently took to the streets in London and Glasgow to protest against new immigration measures that prevented them from recruiting chefs from the Indian sub-continent.

Several representations were also made to the government by MPs and association of restaurant owners. The MAC report published on Tuesday includes 'skilled chefs' as one of the shortage occupations, meeting the main demand of the industry.

However, it will not be easy for Indian IT workers to find job in Britain due to the surplus in the employment market in the country and the EU. Non-EU workers will only be allowed to work in the shortage occupations listed by the MAC.

David Metcalf, the chairman of the MAC, said that an employer would have to meet three hurdles to be able to hire somebody from outside Europe.

"Firstly the job has got to be skilled, secondly there has got to be a shortage, and thirdly and perhaps most importantly, it has to be sensible to bring a person in - there we are looking at the tension between the short-run fix of bringing immigrants in and the long-run need to upskill the economy," Metcalf said.

The changes, which involved looking at 12 different indicators, will result in a more skilled labour supply, he added.

Occupations which are allowed to use foreign workers due to shortages include ship and hovercraft officers and racehorse trainers. There is also a shortage of veterinary surgeons, while quantity surveyors and project managers are needed for property development and construction.