Financial, Professional and Business Services
Manchester is home to the largest regional financial, professional, and business services (FPBS) industry outside of London, employing more than 280,000 people.
It is the only UK city outside of the capital with all elements of the sub-sectors represented at scale – from banking, financial services and FinTech to insurance, accounting and legal – providing depth and diversity across a range of disciplines.
Manchester is home to some of the world’s leading financial, professional and business services companies from Barclays, BNY Mellon, AXA, Latham & Watkins, OakNorth and Adyen.
This diversity enables the city to provide expert support to a range of businesses, allowing them to quickly scale up operations at minimum cost and making Manchester a high quality, low risk investment location.
The city is also a leading destination for back office operations, offering businesses access to the UK’s most fully evolved and scalable talent pool as well as 30-40% average savings on operating costs.
Manchester’s financial, professional and business services sector can be traced back to the industrial revolution when the growing cotton industry received immense support from the city’s banks, insurers and professional services firms that set up here to take advantage of the opportunity.
Fast forward to today, the sector is the largest outside of London, accounting for 20% of the local economy, and Manchester is home to the UK’s largest regional FinTech ecosystem.
Manchester has historically been the location of choice for back office and technology operations but now also attracts more complex middle and front office financial services roles due to the highly-skilled workforce the city region has developed.
Spinningfields, one of Europe’s most successful urban regeneration projects, sits at the heart of the city’s FPBS industry, where it is estimated that 20,000 people work. Firms including Barclays, Deloitte and Brewin Dolphin are located here, a sign of their confidence in Manchester as a place where the largest transactions can be made and signed off.
Financial, Professional and Business Factsheet
Manchester- The UK’s Largest Regional Financial, Professional and Business Services Hub
DownloadDeborah Walker Head of Inward Investment - Financial and Business Services
Sub Sectors
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#1 of 15 Tech Cities
(exl. London) – CBRE Tech City Report 2022
#2 large city for connectivity
fDi European Cities of the Future 2019/20
UK’s leading city for attracting FDI outside London
EY's 2023 UK Attractiveness Survey
UK’s most entrepreneurial city
Business Cloud report 2021
#3 Best City in the World
Time Out 2021
UK’s most liveable city
The Economist’s Global Liveability Index 2022