ONLY six per cent of industry body Scottish Engineering’s member companies want the UK to leave the European Union, with more than three-quarters wishing to remain in the free trade bloc, a survey has shown.

The revelation of this overwhelming preference for staying in the EU comes hard on the heels of an ORB opinion poll, published on Friday, showing 55 per cent support for Brexit among the UK public and only 45 per cent backing for remaining in the free trade bloc.

In the Scottish Engineering survey, 78 per cent of member companies favoured staying in the EU, with 16 per cent of respondents expressing no preference.

Meanwhile, a survey published today by recruitment company Manpower shows Scottish companies’ expectations of overall jobs growth have fallen back, with Brexit fears cited as a key factor.

Bryan Buchan, chief executive of Scottish Engineering, emphasised his organisation’s survey had covered companies of all sizes.

And he declared that the biggest concern was the uncertainty over what would happen in the event of a vote to leave the EU.

Asked how big a chance he believed there was of a Brexit vote, Mr Buchan replied: “It seems to be fairly close at the moment.”

He emphasised that Scottish Engineering was not making a political statement but, rather, was interested in what was best for its sector in the context of the EU referendum.

Mr Buchan said: “We are not politicking on this. We are an apolitical organisation. We are solely interested in the well-being of our sector.”

He revealed that the conclusive nature of Scottish Engineering’s EU poll result had not been a surprise to him, with the industry body’s members having, during visits to their sites, expressed “very strong” views on the issue.

Mr Buchan added: “It is pretty emphatic that our membership would like us to remain, for business purposes, within the EU.”

About 30 per cent of Scottish Engineering’s membership base of more than 400 companies responded to its survey of views on EU membership.

Mr Buchan said: “The biggest concern is the uncertainty. We don’t know what we have if we exit Europe. We do know what we have with the status quo.”

He added: “Looking at the people who did respond, it was across the spectrum, from SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) right through to some of the larger players.

“It is not that this is a large company with a broad export base looking after its interest. It spreads down into the smaller companies who do a certain amount of trade either with Europe or from Europe.”

He highlighted the fact that Scottish engineering companies sourced part-assembled products from other EU member states. He noted that such products had in some cases become the “industry standard”, citing as an example programmable logic controllers made by German company Siemens.

Mr Buchan also observed that Scottish machine shops had brought in some skilled workers from Eastern European countries such as Poland. He noted that large fabricators also had demand for mainland European workers as they dealt with peaks and troughs in demand.

The Manpower survey shows that, subtracting the percentage of Scottish companies expecting to reduce the size of their workforce from that intending to hire additional workers, a net three per cent predict a rise in employment in the coming quarter.

This is down from a corresponding balance of six per cent in the previous quarterly survey. And it is well adrift of a comparable UK-wide balance of five per cent in the latest report.

Amanda White, operations manager at Manpower, said: “Scotland continues to underperform the UK’s average rate of hiring intentions.

“We have seen a dip this quarter, which we partly attribute to renewed employer caution around Brexit uncertainty.”

Manpower is warning that Brexit could leave businesses facing a critical talent shortage, with EU workers no longer able to move freely to the UK.

According to betting odds supplied by Betfair, the chances that the UK will vote to leave the EU increased sharply yesterday to 36 per cent.