Scotland is recognised as one of Europe’s leading financial centres, offering your company a long history of financial services innovation and a flexible and highly skilled workforce.
Scotland’s financial services industry consistently performs strongly compared to the rest of the UK and international competitors. The most recent Scottish GDP data shows financial services grew by 0.5% in 2010 compared to 2009. In comparison output in the Scottish economy as a whole grew by 0.8%.
Financial services companies like yours are attracted to Scotland for a number of reasons:
- Scotland’s financial services generate around £7 billion each year.
- Scotland offers competitive salary, property and tax rates.
- Scotland is the second largest financial hub in the UK after London.
- Scotland accounts for nine percent of total employment in financial services across Great Britain.
- Scotland’s insurance sector has a 24 percent share of all employment in the sector across the UK.
- Nearly 95,000 people are directly employed in the industry with over 70,000 in support services.
- A sound financial services infrastructure is already in place.
The four key sectors of the financial services industry are: