Industry Strengths

Over the last decade, Manchester City Region has emerged as one of Europe’s leading shared service hubs resulting in a highly developed industry infrastructure.

The city region alone is home to a cluster of 30 facilities employing over 5,000 people with a further 15 shared service centres located across the Northwest of England, resulting in a large, skilled labour pool specialising in finance, procurement, Human Resources & IT.

Manchester is unique in its approach to training, supporting both a Professional Apprenticeship in Shared Services graduate programme to school leavers and a BTEC vocational qualification allowing staff to build skills in a range of areas such as Accounting, Customer Services, IT, HR and Payroll.

Manchester is also a leader in pan-European Service Centres supported by its international and cosmopolitan population aiding processes in over 20 languages. This has attracted a number of prestigious global companies such as Kellogg’s and JT International. The multi-lingual labour pool in Manchester is now so well developed that employers can easily recruit skilled accountants who also have the ability to speak foreign languages.

Most recently, US-owned global manufacturing giant SPX Corporation selected Manchester over other European locations as the site for its new pan-European Finance Shared Service Centre and HR service centre.

In addition, Manchester has traditionally been a strong base for national centres with award-winning shared service centres such as Marks & Spencer and Royal Bank of Scotland. Manchester is a location where shared services operators can balance the requirement for a high quality facility with the need to achieve significant savings in the delivery of internal services. The lower cost of living in Manchester compared to the rest of the UK allows both salary levels and attrition rates to remain stable and at levels that are below the UK national average and can deliver 30% savings over London.

Recent investments from the UK’s largest food producer Premier Foods which has created a new 240 head Finance centre, and from food retailer Sainsbury’s which has established a 250 head HR centre, will ensure the city region’s shared services centres continue to thrive.

Learn more about setting up a shared service centre in Manchester City Region by watching our latest webinar

To find out more about the shared service centre industry in Manchester City Region, please contact:

Caroline Cain, Business Development Manager
caroline.cain@midas.org.uk