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You are here > Why Birmingham > Sector strengths
Once known as the ‘workshop of the world’, Birmingham and the West Midlands has always been proud of its reputation as a place where things are created, and big ideas sparked. Today, the West Midlands’ diverse range of thriving sectors and entrepreneurial spirit continue to drive global innovation and change.
In the tech, creative and digital sector, we’re innovating across high growth industries including smart cities, cybersecurity and Industry 4.0. The region has fast become the UK’s largest business, finance and professional services cluster too, with world-class brands setting up in the city at our heart.
Data-driven healthcare is centred on Birmingham, where clinical testing and manufacturing thrives. Supporting our region-wide ambitions for a greener future, our low carbon sector is growing at incredible speed as Birmingham and the West Midlands is set to lead the coming Green Industrial Revolution. Advanced manufacturing builds on our historic role in the last revolution, where manufacturing made Birmingham the powerhouse of the UK. Now, innovation is the key to our growth, and our brilliant people remain the key to that innovation.
Technology is thriving in the West Midlands, and our growing pool of talented people are always looking to the next big thing. The UK’s fastest-growing tech cluster, with a workforce expected to double by 2025, and home to the country’s first multi-city 5G testbed, the West Midlands is primed with opportunities to test and develop cross-cutting innovation across high growth industries of the future, such as Industry 4.0; low carbon tech; data-driven healthcare; smart cities; and cybersecurity.
As a result, the region is recognised as the largest emerging technologies cluster outside London, hosting the largest spread of up-and-coming tech strengths, and the highest number of companies developing new tech of any other UK region – especially in tech and creative, where there are more companies across specialisms including digital transformation; gaming; immersive tech; process automation and software development.
This landscape for disruption offers both ambitious start-ups and established companies with high growth plans a fertile landing ground to access or create new tech-based markets, especially in green and sustainable technologies; connected and automated mobility (CAM); automotive electrification; and professional and financial services, where there is already a clear evidence base of success.
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DID YOU KNOW…
The West Midlands is on track to create an extra 52,000 digital tech jobs and grow by £2.7 billion by 2025
As the only place with a true full service offering outside London, the West Midlands is fast becoming a second centre for finance in the UK.
The largest UK regional Business & Finance & Professional Services cluster, our region offers world-class brands, scale and unrivalled breadth of talent. Plus, a recognised high-growth proftech cluster creates new innovative businesses and attracting new investors.
The original home of iconic heritage brands including Lloyds Bank and Midland Bank – now HSBC – today the West Midlands is a destination for leading institutions across the banking, legal and consultancy sub-sectors to serve clients across the UK and around the world.
A critical mass of expertise in investment and corporate banking; commercial and retail finance; insurance; global advisory; legal; and accounting, puts the West Midlands on the map as the most diverse and significant concentration of expertise outside the capital.
Businesses favour the region for its affordability and accessibility – especially when it comes to talent. Over 343,000 people work in the sector locally across 53,000 companies, backed by a 16,600-strong pipeline of business, finance and law graduates from the region’s nine worldclass universities.
That means plenty of opportunity for collaboration as the West Midlands boasts the largest regional offices for each of the Big Four – PwC, EY, Deloitte and KPMG – and the European headquarters of major international law firm Gowling WLG. It’s not just big business in our financial cluster, though. In Birmingham alone, there are over 4,400 companies employing 53,000 people and the city has quickly become the largest premium hub for financial and professional services outside of London. All are ready and waiting to work with you.
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DID YOU KNOW…
West Midlands businesses are growing – there are now 48,000 Business, Professional and Financial Services companies based right here
A hotspot for medical innovation and expertise, the West Midlands is at the centre of that all-important industry: healthcare.
The West Midlands is a leading UK centre of data-driven healthcare expertise and innovation. Employing over 17,000, the region’s multidisciplinary, urban-centred healthcare ecosystem offers businesses a stand-out speed-to-market opportunity. From early concept to clinical testing and manufacturing, the West Midlands uniquely supports every step of the development cycle, from ‘bench to bedside’.
Spearheading the region’s data-driven healthcare proposition are three distinct pillars of opportunity: digital, diagnostics and devices.
Through unrivalled access to electronic clinical and genomic data of scale from a 5.5million-strong, non-transient patient population, the opportunities to test and implement new and impactful healthcare interventions in the West Midlands are endless. This is underscored by one of the most advanced electronic patient record systems in the UK, aggregated by University Hospitals Birmingham (UHB).
Of all the West Midlands’ healthcare specialisms, med-tech presents the greatest opportunity, accounting for 61% of the region’s healthcare sector and 8% of the UK’s overall turnover in the field. The region has successfully translated its skills base - as the manufacturing heartland of the UK - into a leading proving ground for the prototyping, testing and manufacture of medical devices.
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DID YOU KNOW…
MedTech accounts for 61% of the West Midlands’ life sciences sector.
Welcome to the home of the green industrial revolution.
With low-carbon goods now representing the fastest growing sector in its £105bn economy, the West Midlands is poised to lead Britain’s Green Industrial Revolution. Here, we are simultaneously advancing several vital, interconnected infrastructure systems across energy, mobility, manufacturing, and housing, to deliver holistic and impactful low carbon solutions.
Unrivalled as the automotive capital of the UK (responsible for a third of all British made cars), the West Midlands is harnessing its transport heritage to pioneer cutting-edge new technologies in zero emission travel. From electric vehicle supply chain to Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) and Very Light Rail (VLR); major West Midlands-headquartered brands including Jaguar Land Rover, the London Electric Vehicle Company (LEVC) and Aston Martin are at the vanguard of the UK’s Electric Vehicle revolution.
Beyond tailpipe emissions, local expertise in systemwide decarbonisation is redefining the future of energy generation, storage, and distribution, compounded by smart energy systems. The West Midlands is the only UK region with designated Energy Innovation Zones and sits at the heart of the UK’s transmission and distribution infrastructure, with National Grid and Cadent Gas headquartered in the region.
We believe in a greener, cleaner future and here in the West Midlands, we’re working hard to see it happen.
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DID YOU KNOW…
The low carbon industry in the West Midlands is still growing, with 21,000 new jobs set to be created by 2026
At the centre of the UK’s largest automotive, rail and aerospace clusters, the West Midlands is at the vanguard of solving many of the key global future mobility challenges.
Establishing a legacy for invention at the height of the first Industrial Revolution, today the region remains a powerhouse of productivity and innovation. A leading location for goods exports outside London and the Southeast, the West Midlands’ manufacturing sector generates £10.4bn GVA for the national economy – more than any other cluster across the country.
A 211,000-strong workforce accounts for 11.3% of all local employment – well above the national average of 7.9%. Specialising in machinery, electronics, and transport, the region’s extensive and multi-layered supply chain reflects its deep-rooted expertise.
Manufacturers at all stages of the growth cycle – from homegrown start-ups to historic SMEs – support a network of global heavyweights that call the West Midlands home, with Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Aston Martin, Rolls Royce Control Systems and Collins Aerospace among the leading local players. A collaborative ecosystem of academic-industry partnerships underpins the scale of the sector, offering a fertile landscape to commercialise new technologies from research labs to market.
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DID YOU KNOW…
Over 21% of all the UK’s automotive parts and accessories manufacturers are based in the West Midlands.
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