Financial and Professional
Yorkshire has the largest combined financial and professional services sector workforce outside of London. Worth over £14.8bn annually, and forecast to grow by a further 40% over the next 10 years, the sector provides significant opportunities in both retail and corporate banking, including insurance and pension funding; e-commerce, shared services and data storage.
With operating costs up to 20% lower than the UK average and salaries across the financial and professional sector around 12% lower than the UK average, our region provides a low risk base for ambitious companies looking to set up or expand in this sector. This ensures that you minimize operational costs, without sacrificing the skills needed to deliver a successful operation in this sector.
Over 264,000 people are directly employed in this sector in the region, providing a significant workforce with the essential skills and capacity to deal with high levels of retail banking activity, especially with regards to mortgage processing, retail savings & investments, insurance and pension funding. In fact Leeds is the most important UK centre for insurance outside London.
The strength of Yorkshire’s financial services sector is built not only on the quality of the sector's workforce, but on the scale of the business base served from our main cities, providing the ideal location to target a huge customer base both within the UK and Europe, from a very competitive operating cost base. This is why our region has attracted over 30 national and international banks such as HSBC and the. Lloyds Banking Group.
As financial organizations look to reduce overheads to remain competitive, many are looking at improved back office operations, with shared service centres and the ability to support the growing demand for secure online transactions becoming increasingly important.
Yorkshire has a significant strength in this area, with one of the most advanced telecommunications networks in Europe, with access to fibre optic networks providing unparalleled specification and capacity. This supports over 400 contact centres in the region, with Leeds ranking in the top 5 locations worldwide for IT shared service centres, recognising our excellence in language skills and labour flexibility.
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