Some interesting statistics on the resilience of Scotland's financial services industry
There's been no shortage of slightly gloomy projections about the prospects for Scottish financial services job creation in the last few months, but as we enter the new year, key players north of the border have been keen to point out just how resilient it's been.
Despite the downsizing in the banking sector, Scotland last year managed to attract significant investment within the back office and IT sectors – not least State Street's expansion to 840 employees in Edinburgh, BlackRock's creation of 250 jobs and banking software firm Avaloq's plans to eventually employ 500 people in its new development centre in the Scottish capital.
Obviously, as we enter 2012 amid a general sense of apprehension and pessimism around the financial sector, there are still reasons for concern about financial services in Scotland – particularly as the two large Scottish banks continue to eliminate jobs.
However, an article in today's FT points to some interesting statistics about how well the sector has held up north of the border.
These include:
-Lloyds Banking Group and RBS have together eliminated 49,000 jobs, but just 4,000 have hit Scotland – 2,000 within each institution.
-Tesco Bank now employs 3,000 people; 2,400 of these are based in Edinburgh.
-Assets under management within Scottish fund managers now stand at around £750bn, up from £650bn at the end of 2010.
-Scotland's finance industry employs around 100,000 people. It accounts for 27% of all employees in life assurance sector in the UK, 14% of those working in fund management and 10% of banking positions in Britain.
-Around 40% of Scottish financial services jobs are in Edinburgh, 24% in Glasgow and 36% in the rest of Scotland.
