The UK’s financial services sector is a primary global industry, contributing significantly to the national economy. It generates £278 billion and employs 2.5 million people. In 2022, the UK attracted over £2 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI), creating nearly 15,000 new jobs. However, increasing global competition necessitates ongoing adaptation and innovation. Key opportunities lie in the effective implementation of the Financial Services and Markets Act, strengthening EU-UK business relationships, finalising the UK-Switzerland Mutual Recognition Agreement, embracing digital transformation, and advancing technologies such as tokenisation and digital ID (GOV UK, 2023).
In 2024, the financial sector faces a challenging macroeconomic environment characterised by sluggish growth, high interest rates, and a persistent cost of living crisis. Regulatory pressures, especially post-Brexit, remain intense. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) focuses on Consumer Duty compliance and the security implications of new technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Strengthening cyber resilience is critical, with evolving expectations around cybersecurity regulations and risk management. Firms must prioritise cybersecurity training, breach reporting, and developing a robust cyber risk culture to meet these challenges effectively. The “Finance for Growth: a Roadmap” by the City of London Corporation aims to reinforce the UK’s role as a global financial centre by addressing these challenges and opportunities (Grant Thorton, 2024).
The UK’s insurance industry, one of the largest globally, continues to navigate significant disruptions and opportunities. It encompasses a sizable domestic sector and multinational providers with a worldwide reach. As of 2020, the UK led Europe’s domestic insurance market and ranked fourth globally for written life and non-life direct premiums, trailing only the United States, China, and Japan. The sector employed over 114,000 people in 2020. The insurance industry is divided into life insurance, covering life-changing events like death, disability, or terminal illness, and non-life insurance, covering property damage, business insurance, and private health insurance. The UK wrote €116 billion in non-life insurance premiums, positioning it as the second-highest in Europe (IBIS World, 2023).
(Grant Thorton, 2024; DWF, 2024; Lexis Nexis, 2024)
(Grant Thorton, 2024; DWF, 2024; Lexis Nexis, 2024)
The hospitality industry primarily consists of catering and accommodation services. It includes restaurants, cafes, pubs, bars, catering, hotels, campsites and other establishments (House of Commons, 2021).
For hotels, performance continues to accelerate with the continued growth of average room rates, partially galvanised by growing inflation and robust pent-up demand, allowing bargaining power for hoteliers to drive rates further. Transactional volumes remained strong at the start of 2022, with European Q1 reaching €3.54 billion, 47% of which manifested in the UK market.
The prediction is that of steady market growth. A Lumina Intelligence UK Restaurant Market Report forecasts that the UK restaurant market will reach a market value of £18.3bn by 2025, and the pub and bar sector market’s value in 2022 will achieve 98% of its value pre-Covid (Wave Consulting, 2022; Catering Today, 2022).
Nevertheless, the industry has operational challenges to face. The pandemic, demographic changes and Brexit have significantly altered the demand for hospitality jobs, the way people want to work and how businesses need to recruit. The vacancy rates in the Hospitality Sector are up 93%. The industry already boasts a great range of vocational and academic qualifications regarding workforce skills and training, but these must be built upon and become more widespread (UK Hospitality, 2022).
Moreover, evidence suggests that, since the pandemic, employers have struggled to adapt their mental health support processes to manage the increased pressure and stress on hospitality workers (Caterer Licensee Hotelier, 2022).
(The Guardian, 2022; Caterer Licensee Hotelier, 2022; UK Hospitality, 2022)
(UK Hospitality, 2022; Hospitality Insights, 2022)
