Attitudes in the regions are changing. Whereas once the dominance of London was seen as detrimental to the likes of Manchester and Birmingham as it sucked investment opportunities away from other parts of the country, now the capital’s success is filtering through to all corners of the UK.

In Manchester, great strides have been made in the financial sector in recent years, with the city no longer promoting itself as a direct competitive alternative to London. Instead, the north’s burgeoning financial centre is positioning itself as a complimentary value offering to the capital – helping to shoulder the inevitable strains put on recruitment, retention and training as London develops into the world’s financial centre.

MIDAS, Manchester’s inward investment agency, has facilitated the relocation of many big-name financial organisations in recent years. As well as being home to the Big Four’s largest regional offices, other sizable firms such as Baker Tilly are also able to take advantage of the wider infrastructure of expertise in areas such as the Alternative Investment Market.

For example, Halliwells, currently AIM lawyer of the year is headquartered in the city, employing more than 800 staff across its Manchester operations, with potential to almost double this at its new Spinningfields site.

Selling a city like Manchester to potential investors requires a sophisticated marketing operation and Manchester comes into its own as a desirable UK location for financial organisations needing a major operational centre outside London.

As a location, the city can provide a wide variety of solutions to businesses from across the whole spectrum of the financial sector. It can cater for a range of back and middle office functions, such as regulation, shared services, data centres and customer contact centres, while at the same time offering cost savings of around 30% compared to London. In some cases it can provide a lower risk alternative to offshoring.

However, viewing the country’s regions as simply an alternative to the sub-continent misses a huge opportunity. In 2005, the Manchester city region’s accountancy and finance firms were involved with almost 50% of all AIM flotations, with Russian, Chinese and Indian companies seeking access to the City of London through Manchester.

In the past five years, the area has seen considerable growth in deal values, with mergers and acquisitions in 2006 totalling £18.8bn – including one of the largest deals ever handled by Manchester’s professionals, the £1.5bn Caudwell Holdings deal.

Regional strength

Although we present ourselves as a complimentary offering to London, there are a number of key elements that further strengthen the regional offering of a centre like Manchester, in addition to the considerable cost savings.

Manchester has a large, sustainable, pool of labour with a commuter population of 5.2 million within 30 miles of the city centre. The financial sector is also highly productive and experienced, with 81% of the Manchester workforce employed in the services sector, of which more than 240,000 work in financial and professional services.

It has more than 5,500 qualified chartered accountants, six centres where accountants can train and many accountancy practices where finalists train within work. However, it is the ever-growing student population that is making the city so attractive to the big accountancy firms, whose recruitment drives are fed by more than 3,000 new graduates qualifying in finance-related subjects every year. The city has four universities – University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, Salford University and the University of Bolton – with a combined student population of more than 100,000, one of the largest in Europe.

Manchester Business School at the University of Manchester, meanwhile, has been described by independent bodies as one of the leading schools of its type in Europe and is home to the six-star rated School of Accountancy and Finance, one of only two schools of accountancy in the UK to have this top rating.

In addition, the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School is one of the largest business schools in the UK, with some 3,000 undergraduates and 1,500 postgraduates. As well as offering degrees in all major sub-disciplines of business and management, the School engages in applied research and provides in-house courses and consultancy services for corporate clients.

All these factors led the Institute of Financial Planning to chose MMUBS as its first and only UK partner to develop its presence across the country.

The agreement looks likely to set a new national educational benchmark for the financial services sector, as the university’s financial services degree becomes the first in the UK to offer a programme that will meet the pre-certification education requirement for the certified financial planner qualification, the discipline is highest professional standard.

Complementing the universities, regional training and development organisations Manchester Solutions and Skills Solutions have been supporting the recruitment and professional training of young people through the accountancy apprenticeship and have a high success rate of achievers going onto higher level professional studies from ATT to ACCA and CIMA.

Due to the success of these schemes a new programme was developed called the professional apprenticeship, designed for young people leaving school with A Levels, wanting to embark on a new career in accountancy. The programme is unique to Manchester and is delivered in partnership with the

National Commercial Providers of Accounts Training and, where applicable, it is either fully or partially funded by the Learning & Skills Council.

Alongside this unique initiative, Skills Solutions has been leading the way on some of the new funded apprenticeships in financial services and is, at present, one of the only providers in the country offering the L3 investment banking scheme as a first start on the career ladder for school leavers into financial services. This programme has been highly successful and offers learners working in global custody, investment and fund accounting roles the opportunity to develop themselves through SII professional studies.

For a city like Manchester, with its expanding financial sector, this investment in the future is vital to its continued growth.

We are aware how critical these unique, bespoke training packages are to attract and retain investment in the financial services sector. Continuing to be at the cutting edge of financial services education is vital to the future development of the sector within the city.

Tim Newns is head of business development for the financial and professional sector at MIDAS