The UK is Europe’s second-largest economy, recently overtaking France and setting itself up to become the continent’s largest by 2030. Recent data presented in the Office for National Statistics labour market overview indicates there are 29.5 million employees in the UK as of January 2022. The UK remained the world’s fifth-largest economy throughout the challenges of 2020, behind the obvious powerhouses of the United States, China, Japan and Germany. The UK economy has recently expanded at its fastest pace since World War II, and this expansion has made Britain the fastest growing advanced economy, as of 2021. But who are the major economic players in this country, which industries are leading the way? Take a look at some interesting facts and recent data about the UK’s top 10 industries.
Finance and banking
Latest data indicates that the financial services sector comprises 3% of all jobs in the United Kingdom, with 1.1 million people working in the industry as of Q1 2021. The banking industry covers the retail and commercial banking activities of deposit-taking institutions, and the UK’s banks, specifically, employ 278,504 people. Banking’s current market size (raw monetary value from total sales) sits at £92bn. Additionally, economic revenue from the UK’s banks amount to £76.2bn. Outside of London, the UK’s main financial centres are in Edinburgh, Leeds, Manchester, and Birmingham. Currently, banking alone accounts for 4.2% of the country’s GDP.
Information Technology
Nearly every major industry relies on modern technology to function, making the importance of the technology sector difficult to underestimate. As of late 2021, the total market size for computer consultants alone was £58bn in the UK, currently providing an economic revenue of £46.2bn. The most recent data indicates that the IT sector accounted for 4% of all the UK’s jobs. There were 940k Britons employed in IT, software and computer services in 2021, with 418,657 specifically employed in computer consultancy. As the knowledge-based economy becomes a reality, it is expected that nearly half of the UK’s GDP will come from this sector within the next decade.