Hiring in Glasgow is booming - here’s why

By Andrew Welsh

| 11/07/2022

As the coffee shops and lunchtime eateries of Bothwell Street and surrounds return to their normal pre-covid levels of business, our expectations are that the days of long queues and jostling for a seat in Costa have returned. And will only get busier. Permanent hiring in Glasgow’s financial services sector is up 32% year on year and we expect the market to remain strong for the time being. Here is why:

Functional Relocations

Barclays commitment to Glasgow has been well documented and publicised and continues to accelerate. A number of other global and UK-focussed financial services firms are moving roles with the ecosystem being supportive due to the price of property and the depth of the talent pool available at an attractive compensation level.

FinTech Rising

While the days of access to cheap money seem to be slowing for the FinTech sector globally, many of the FinTech firms in Glasgow have moved past the start-up phase and into “scale-up”. Glasgow is the city they are electing to do so. For those FinTech’s with a financial institution client base, Glasgow is attractive due to the proximity to London and Edinburgh but also with a talent pool which isn’t likely to be other FinTech's or “nicked” by larger firms with deeper pockets. For those operating on a B2C basis, who can be location agnostic in the UK, they have a good talent pool and a supportive ecosystem in which to operate in Glasgow.

Move to Agile Working

Flexibility is the number one thing candidates are looking for and is still the main bone of contention. Employers are wrestling with it as we edge into a “post-covid” world. At Meraki we have seen the full range of opinions, from individuals only wanting fully remote roles, to someone turning down a job offer as the client was shutting their Glasgow office to move to a “work from anywhere” model (that candidate did have three kids under six, so maybe understandable!). With most financial services firms landing at two or three days in the office, it has created both talent opportunities as well as attrition which needs to be backfilled, as candidates who would never have considered the daily M8 grind or Scotrail Queen St to Waverly are happy to do so – in both directions.

Private Equity backed firms chasing growth

Many of Glasgow’s market participants are PE backed and have defined timelines for financial events. This has created a need for headcount growth across client-facing and sales roles, as well as operational and technical staff to ensure this growth is scalable and risk-managed.

Outlook

While there is evidence of the hiring market softening in some areas across the other major financial centres in the UK, we expect Glasgow to continue to buck this trend for the rest of 2022 and into 2023. Key hiring areas will be in: