To What Degree Are Businesses And People Leaving London - And Why?

By Author: Bradley Weiss
Total Articles: 272
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The exodus of younger, entrepreneurial Brits to other cities is measurable and noticeable. And who can blame them? Great jobs and better housing await them.


Many people were surprised to hear in late 2014 that over the previous year 60,000 Londoners left that city to move elsewhere in the UK. Fine, one might think, that helps solve the housing shortage, right?


“Solve” is far from it. In fact, immigration from outside the UK makes up the difference quite handily such that the city’s population is expected to grow from the present 7.95 million to 10 million people by the year 2030 - which will require the construction of a half-million more homes. Instead, this exodus from London to places such as Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Nottingham, Southampton and Oxford is driven in part by the lack of housing.


Which gives those who invest through managers of real asset funds much to cheer about. These are the private drivers of housing needed in areas of economic growth. Which may well be what’s ...
... happening in places of voluntary exile. Within that large number, 60,000 people, the Office of National Statistics shows a smaller but probably more impactful figure: 22,000. That’s the net outflow of people in their thirties on the National Health Service registers, which is likely an undercount.


The reason that this is the more meaningful number is two-fold. One, that people in this age bracket tend to have young families and as such they illustrate how hard it is to raise a family in London. With the cost of housing so high they lack the funds to manage getting on the property ladder at all or to do so means a significant compromise to their expectations for the size and location of the homes they want. One couple told The Guardian in December that for the same money they were spending to rent a 1.5 bedroom apartment in Wimbledon Village they could buy a five-bedroom house in Kings Norton, near the Birmingham city centre.


But second, this is the age when many people start businesses. If they are starting them in Birmingham, it means they’ll likely remain established there. A few will grow to be significant employers - further promoting migration to what once were considered second-choice cities. Their funds and assets will grow here; in fact, cities such as Birmingham have been receiving young entrepreneurs for several years already, particularly after the financial crisis of 2008.


As one might expect, many of these entrepreneurs are in the tech sector. Among the 6,000 technology companies based here are those in the computer gaming sector that comprise a full 20 per cent of such companies in Britain. Online fashion retailer Asos established a key development office in Birmingham in 2013 because company officials felt confident they could recruit talent there.


Global corporations are looking outside of London as well. Deutsche Bank established an office in 2010 in Birmingham with 50 employees. They’ve grown to 2,000 employees in just five years.


This growth, particularly because it involves young families, does not go unnoticed by UK property fund managers. Their investments in land, building and commercial properties help these older, non-London cities to reinvent themselves. As many of these émigrés arrive with good salaries and for the purpose of bigger homes, the market for new and better houses is strong.


Investors always like growth regions for obvious reasons. But blindly investing in land or property is highly inadvisable. Speak first with an independent financial advisor to learn how and where to find the types of asset growth that fit your objectives.