The North-West region (which covers Manchester and Liverpool) has came 9th in the 2020 Global Startup Ecosystem Report. The report assessed 270 systems around the world including regions such as Dubai, Lyon and Chengdu in China, on the performance of the start-ups, access to early stage funding, ability to scale and the availability of localised talent.
Manchester has long been known as the nations second centre for finance after London, but this is also being underpinned by depth and diversity in all professional disciplines from banking, financial services, insurance, accountancy and law. In the Spinningfields area alone, where our own offices are now based, it is estimated that over 20,000 people work at the heart of the regions financial and professional services industry, One of the biggest growth sectors for start-ups in the region is in the FinTech sector who see Manchester with its lower overheads in terms of office space and base salaries, coupled with the availability of top graduate talent, a great alternative to London and the South East.
A recent report by Whitecap Consulting has found Greater Manchester to have the second largest FinTech ecosystem outside of the nations capital. The report identified nearly 40 FinTech start-ups and scale-ups, and a total of 109 firms active in FinTech in the region (including the larger established financial services organisations, start-ups and scale-ups), employing some 8000 people more than any other region covered in the report.
Alongside homegrown FinTech start-ups such as Nivo and Bankifi, Manchester has attracted national and globally significant firms such as MoneySuperMarket, Worldpay and Xero. The FinTech ecosystem is also bolstered by traditional banks and financial services companies such as Barclays, NatWest and the Co-operative Bank all running tech hubs out of the city.
