London has always been the front-runner in Europe and certainly one of the most important players in the world when it comes to trade and business. Some of the largest corporations chose London as their hub and with talents drawn from all over the world it also quickly became a leader in successful start-up ventures, especially from the tech and fin-tech sectors.

This idyllic pot was firmly stirred however on June 26, 2016. A loud public ‘Yes’ vote which would lead UK out of the European Union meant that everything the business sector knew and was used to changed, practically overnight.

Today, more than 2 years later and with the ‘Brexit’ deadline approaching rapidly, everything seems even more surreal, although more tangible.

Although nobody seems to yet know and understand how ‘Brexit’ will fundamentally look like and how it will affect London’s position in Europe, apart from a slightly weaker pound and a few declarations from companies which decided to move their headquarters to other European locations, it’s business as usual, or at least it isn’t as dreadful as predictions even from last year would suggest.

According to data, the business sector in London is still growing at a good rate. Some of the areas however seem to be performing slightly better than others. In this article, we’re taking a closer look at the 5 fastest growing London business sectors, which even post Brexit, appear to be a driving force in the city’s development.

FinTech

Technical, and more specifically – FinTech sector are on the forefront of business developments in London. A number of leading Fin-Tech companies are based in London – including Monzo or TransferWise.

According to research by KPMG, A m 9.1 billion takeover of British payments processor ‘Worldpay’ by US rival ‘Vantiv’ helped the sector attract more investment than those in the US and China during the first half of this year, which clearly shows just how strong the Fin-Tech sector truly is not only in London, but in the UK. Consequently, it is widely reported that the number of jobs in this field posted in the UK is going to grow by at least 5.1% over the next year.

With technology taking over most of the businesses and industries today, it comes as no surprise that banks and financial institutions, along with a host of other businesses and possibly even government affairs might slowly be undergoing a massive change. People all over the world are leaning towards investing in or even transacting in, more secure and stable currencies like cryptocurrencies. Since they make use of complex blockchain technology, they may possibly be safer, and since they are decentralized, they do not fall under the scrutiny of a single governing body.

Although they come with challenges that must be tackled, and there is always a bit of risk involved with digitizing transactions, people are looking at this as a viable option. It becomes evident that, when more and more people start searching for ‘Dogecoin kaufen‘ (Buy Dogecoin) or other cryptocurrencies to invest in, this could be the future of banking and major transactions. FinTech companies and even regular banks and financial institutions may be gearing up for this change, which means that the FinTech sector might be seeing enormous growth in this dimension too.

GDPR

GDPR, the new set of data protection regulations, which replaced the 1998 Data Protection Act, is a new sector within the business industry which for many appeared out of nowhere in May 2018 and as companies are trying to figure out exactly how the changes might affect them, quickly became one of most important business areas.

It is estimated that this new sector created anywhere between 70,000 – 100,000 jobs in the UK and many these are in London.

From Data Protection Officers and Data Managers to Data Controllers businesses now require experts who will help them to ensure that they comply with the data protection acts.

Healthcare & Dentistry

The demand for qualified healthcare professionals is growing rapidly and at a steady pace, with no signs of reductions in the near future, especially bearing in mind the uncertainty of Brexit. It had been recently revealed that NHS is short of over 42,000 nurses, midwives and therapists. This trend can be seen however across a number of different fields, both private and NHS, including dentists in London, paediatricians or even urologists.

Creative Industries

UK’s Creative industries, which include areas such as advertising & marketing or publishing, are predominantly based in London and a recent research by Nesta and the Creative Industries Council have shown that the creative industries are a driving force behind the economic growth. Looking at the data we can see that the local economies have grown their employment rates in creative industries by an average of 11%, growing at twice the rate of other sectors.

Cyber-Security

Alike the GDPR, cyber-security is a fairly new industry which has grown extremely fast over the recent years. With personal and business data becoming more and more sensitive and cyber-theft now being a real threat to corporations, cybersecurity is in the centre of attention.

The Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) predicts a continuous growth within this business sector as an increasingly number of businesses are looking to protect themselves from potentially devastating cyber-attacks.

Translation

The translation industry for many isn’t an obvious choice when it comes to choosing sectors which are behind the economic growth of London, especially as historically this had been a fairly quiet industry lead by language lovers. Nonetheless, by simply looking at the data, it’s clear to see just how important translations had become to businesses over the recent years, especially in such a cosmopolitan city as London.

The translation sector has grown by almost 40% between 2012 and 2015 and this trend is predicted to continue. It is estimated that by 2020 the translation industry will be worth over $45Billion worldwide.

In order to fully understand just how important professional translation really is to multinational corporations, we have spoken to a representative of one of the leading translation agencies based in London, which specialises in business translations services. According to them, the growth in businesses requiring translations and business owners who seem to truly appreciate the importance of language services and the direct affect they can have of their organisation is clear to see not only year by year, but astonishingly, month by month.

Looking at the business sectors, data and numbers described above, it’s clear to see that although the uncertainty of Brexit is looming over London, the city itself is a resilient organism and it won’t be shaken down easily. Growth in general is predicted for the business sector in London, with some areas growing faster than others, and it now principally depends on the type of Brexit deal negotiated between the UK government and EU representatives to clearly see how the business sector will react.