Brighton and Hove comes up time and again in surveys as one of the best places in the country to live. Yet the best of the city's talent seems to work in London. Why, asks recruitment specialist David Stone, is Brighton and Hove a victim of the brain drain?

Richard Hill is a 28-year-old Brighton resident who works at the cutting edge of new technology.

He is bright, articulate and highly skilled. In fact, exactly the sort of person that organisations in the town would give their eye-teeth to employ.

But unfortunately they can't, because every weekday morning Richard is on the 6.53 from Preston Park heading for an early start at his job in London.

Despite the fact Brighton is one of the most vibrant places in Britain with good accommodation, a great social life and infrastructure and a thriving local economy, too many of our best people have given up the idea of working here.

And for companies like my own, the specialist recruitment consultancy, MRL Group, that desperately need this level of talent to fuel growth, it is a major headache.

So, given the horror stories that pour out of practically any commuter at the slightest provocation, why do so many Brightonians spend up to three hours travelling backwards and forwards to the capital every day?

The problem seems to stem from the fact that while Brighton has developed a fantastic reputation as a place to live and have fun in, it still suffers from the old perception that seaside towns can offer only lower-paid, low-skill jobs.

And, unfortunately statistics seem to back this feeling up. Apart from at a relatively few large companies in the area, such as Amex, there seems to be a "glass ceiling"

for jobs locally.

Graduate level roles, for example, tend to pay only around £15,000 to £16,000, as opposed to £20,000 in London, while executive level pay is about a third less than at the other end of the commuter line. As Richard says: "I earn about £10,000 more in London, which is more than enough to compensate for commuting.

"And there are just so many more opportunities up here - something which has allowed me to double my salary in the three years I've been coming up here."

Yet working in Brighton doesn't have to mean compromising on your career.

The city is now home to a wide spectrum of exciting businesses - everything from PR to new media to professional services firms.

Perhaps where employers are going wrong is that they are simply not shouting loud enough about what is on offer. If you've got a story to tell, you have to tell it - as I'm trying to do right now.

To grow the MRL Group from a standing start a decade ago to an international company with five overseas offices today, we've had to attract and retain precisely the sort of people who are natural commuters.

Because of the nature of our business - specialist recruitment for companies in such areas as technology, finance and energy around the world - we look for highly motivated and informed recruitment consultants.

And we're acutely aware they aren't exactly hanging around on street corners.

We've fought back against the Brighton brain drain by playing London at its own game.

That has meant paying London level salaries, despite the fact we're ten minutes from the beach and providing the sort of opportunities for career development normally not seen outside the capital. That has meant properly thought out training programmes, whole company get-togethers where we bring in staff from offices as far afield as Dubai and Singapore, project teams that transcend national boundaries and treating staff like grown-ups capable of making sensible commercial and career decisions.

It has also meant being imaginative and innovative when it comes to hanging on to good people.

Take, for example, one of our consultants who was under pressure to move to France to live closer to his French wife's family.

Rather than trying to strong arm him into staying in Brighton we got him to put a business plan together for setting up a new office and then funded him to open our new operation in the south of France.

The way we look at it, if you look provincial and act provincial you get provincial people.

We've followed the lead of Insead, one of the world's top business schools, which always says that it doesn't matter where it's based because it's a truly international business.

We take the same view. We could be anywhere - London, Tokyo, Chicago - it's just that we happen to like being based in Brighton. If we can do it, why can't you?

It's time to fight back - Brighton 1, London 0.