UK banking jobs move out of London
Banking jobs are moving out of London
Banks in the UK are increasingly shifting jobs away from London, with the result that while the overall number of banking jobs fell 0.5% between 2013-14, 77 local authorities in the UK saw the number of banking jobs grow faster than in London.
According to figures from the British Bankers’ Association, published to coincide with its annual conference, banking jobs account for 1.7% of total employment in the country, but in the cities of Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol and Edinburgh the local levels range from 2.2% to 6.5%. In terms of job market share outside London, Edinburgh heads the pack by a sizeable margin – 7% higher than the national average.
If pensions and insurance jobs are included Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool have seen growth of 5.3% in the past year.
In Scotland the growth is even more pronounced: Edinburgh has seen a 13% rise and Glasgow 30%.
Topping that – in percentage terms – are North Tyneside, which has seen an 89% growth, and Brentwood in Essex, where the BBA figures show growth at 148% between 2013-14.
According to the BBA figures, there are 510,630 ‘banking jobs’ in the UK, of which 25% are in wholesale banking.
The BBA is also emphasising the number of apprenticeships the industry is creating. Earlier this year it launched an ‘apprenticeship portal’ which it says has increased the number of such positions available: in the past year “nearly 4,000’ new apprenticeships have been created, compared to an annual average of 1,600 a year between 2012-14.
Most of these – apart from HT-related positions – have been created outside London: across retail and general banking operations, IT and technology some 70% of apprenticeships are outside London.
