The survey was carried out by pollsters Infostat in partnership with The Local and Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. In the survey of 860 Swedish-based readers of The Local, half of respondents said they were very likely to still want to be in Sweden in three years.
Of the remaining 50 percent, over half said uncertainty over residence permits or migration policy was the main reason for them being unsure of their future here. The current government tightened immigration policy in recent years, including raising salary thresholds for work permits and lengthening the qualifying period for citizenship to eight years.
The results raise questions about whether Sweden's migration policies are having unintended side-effects: Swedish politicians often emphasise the importance of attracting foreign talent, but the survey appears to show that uncertainty caused by immigration reform is hitting many of the highly-skilled immigrants they say they want to attract.
The vast majority of those who responded to the survey said they worked in sectors associated with highly-skilled workers: in total over 60 percent worked either in IT and tech, research and academia, or engineering.
On the positive side the survey showed high levels of satisfaction with many aspects of life in Sweden: 82 percent were satisfied or very satisfied with the area in which they live, 80 percent of those who had experience of childcare were satisfied or very satisfied with it. 80 percent were similarly satisfied with their overall standard of living.
However, there were some dark spots: only 49 percent were satisfied with healthcare here and only 67 percent with education.
Interestingly, given Sweden's complex rental system, people were broadly happy with their housing situation. However, 40 percent said it had been somewhat difficult or very difficult to find a home. Fifty-nine percent lived in their own house or apartment, while 30 percent lived in a rental apartment with a first-hand contract. Sixty-one percent said long queues for rental apartments had been a major issue in finding a place to live.
On the jobs market, people said their main challenge when finding employment was the language barrier, with networking difficulties in second place. In their personal lives, people said making Swedish friends was the biggest challenge in settling into society here.
Carl Bergqvist, head of policy at the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, said: "For many labour immigrants, it seems that it has become too uncertain what applies to migration policy. Sweden risks losing cutting-edge expertise to other countries, while at the same time making it more difficult for people who want to take the next step and start a business here. It sends the wrong signal to people who could have contributed with new jobs, investments and growth."
One question gave a noteworthy but not altogether surprising answer: when asked where they had found their current job, 32 percent replied they'd done so on LinkedIn and 32 percent via contacts. Only 2 percent had found it through the website of Arbetsförmedlingen, the government employment service, despite the fact that advertising jobs there is obligatory for companies that wish to recruit labour migrants.
Despite the mixed feelings on some topics, people had overwhelmingly positive feelings about their lives in Sweden. Fifty-seven percent said they'd recommend Sweden as a place to live (compared to just 12 percent who said they would not). People based in Stockholm were even more positive: 75 percent said they'd recommend the city as a place to live.
The survey did not collect data about respondents' nationalities. However, previous survey data from The Local suggests that the most common countries of origin for readers are India, the US, the rest of the EU and EEA and the UK.
Infostat weighted the data from the responses by age and gender to adjust for any distortions.
Scroll down for more statistics from the survey.