Over a million people within the United Kingdom are directly employed by the financial services sector, with another million employed in related services. Article: https://jochen-schaefer-suren.co.uk/uk-growth-industries-the-finance-sector/

1. UK Growth Industries - the finance sector
Over a million people within the United Kingdom are directly employed by the financial
services sector, with another million employed within related services sectors. In terms of UK
business sectors, that one million people working within a UK based professional services
industry makes it one of the biggest growth industries in the UK.
The City of London is still one of the most highly ranked financial centres in the world, thanks
to the London Stock Exchange, and accounts for just under one-third of overall employment
in the sector within the UK. A lot of other finance sector workers are employed outside of the
City of London in thriving districts elsewhere across the UK, with large concentrations of
firms in the Cities of Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast.
Within the EU, the UK is still the largest centre for asset management, with almost £4 trillion
worth of assets under management. This sector provides direct employment to around
24,000 workers overall, whilst the associated sector of Insurance companies employ around
a further 300,000 people. Financial services therefore is still a major player within the UK
economy, and even with the looming spectre of Brexit still a factor, employment within the
finance sector continues to rise overall.
Renowned Fund Manager and Financial Sector Expert, Jochen Schaefer-Suren of Principal
Real Estate Europe, has this to say about the current and future status of the UK’s financial
sector. ‘Brexit or no Brexit, London is still standing firm as one of the World’s top financial
sectors. Losing our world finance capital status this year to New York was a blow, but it’s not
necessarily seen within the City as one which London will not recover from’.

2. Looking away from insurance, the UK retail banking sector includes a vast number of
commercial banks and building societies, broking firms, independent financial advisers,
insurance brokers and credit card services. Roles for graduates and newcomers to this
bustling and still growing industry can vary. On offer would be things like customer services,
through to business account management and general management, with operational and
specialist activities such as IT, legal and compliance, marketing and human resources other
important areas of employment within the sector.
The UK scores highly in terms of breadth of financial services, depth of specialism and
global connectivity, making it still an attractive place to base your financial services
company. Technological improvements and the advancement of the internet have reduced
the historical emphasis on geographic location by promoting global working as an
opportunity, and this has shifted the competitive focus onto the flexibility of the workforce
within a company.

3. This development has been matched by the increasing availability of high quality business,
IT and digital marketing, and professional education in universities, and through the strong
regional presence of the major professional bodies.
Although the sector has been badly affected by the credit crunch, the global economic
downturn and of course the ongoing Brexit saga, the UK financial services industry remains
one of the most stable in the world.
Many organisations within the industry are part of international groups or have international
interests and have clients based outside of the UK. These global firms can offer overseas
career development opportunities, particularly in emerging economies where fluency in a
specific language can be advantageous. Graduates with IT and language skills are likely to
find no shortage of opportunities within the finance sector, and that shows no signs of
changing overall.
If we look at some ​key statistics​ about the financial services industry in the UK, we can see
that in 2017 the financial services sector contributed a massive £119 billion to the UK
economy: that’s an impressive 6.5% of the total economic output of the UK.
In keeping with the points about employment within the sector made above, the finance
sector was notably the largest in London, where 50% of the sector’s output was generated.
There has been a wide disparity in the financial sector’s contribution to the economy across
different regions and countries of the UK. The financial sector contributed a gross total of
£58.2 billion to London’s economy in 2016, 14% of London’s total economic output. This is a
much higher proportion than in any other part of the UK.
In the fourth quarter of 2017, there were 1.1 million jobs in the financial and insurance
sector, which accounted for 3.2% of all jobs in the UK. The number of jobs in the financial
services sector has remained broadly steady over the past few decades, but the proportion
of jobs in this industry has fallen as the number of jobs in the whole economy has grown.
What the effect of Brexit will have on this figure is unknown. Economists will be closely
monitoring the reported numbers of jobs within this industry during 2019 and 2020 to try to
get a better understanding of the effect of Brexit on this sector overall.
The UK historically has a large trade surplus in financial and insurance activities (exports
exceed imports in the sector) of £51 billion. In 2016 exports of financial services were worth
£61.4 billion, while imports were worth £10.1 billion, resulting in a trade surplus of £50.8
billion. Financial services made up 25% of all UK service exports and 7% of all service
imports. The UK has maintained a trade surplus in financial services in each of the last ten
years, peaking at £51 billion in 2016.
The financial services sector, and its continued growth and well-being, are vital to the
continued growth of the UK economy. Without the City of London and that financial hub
performing and growing, the UK becomes a much more static and struggling economy.