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by azalemeth 888 days ago
The OP is right – at least according to Ernst and Young [1], who wrote in 2022 that:

> Since the UK’s EU referendum, 44% (97 out of 222) of the largest UK financial services firms have announced plans to move some UK operations and/or staff to the EU – a figure that nearly doubled between March 2017 (53 out of 222, 24%) and March 2021 (95 out of 222, 43%)

> Since the referendum, 24 firms have publicly declared they will transfer just over £1.3trn of UK assets to the EU – a figure which has remained broadly flat over the past 18 months

> In the last quarter [i.e. Q1 2022], the number of Brexit-related staff relocations to the EU has been further revised down, from 7,400 in December 2021 to just over 7,000 as March 2022 closes – significantly down from the peak of 12,500 announced in 2016

> While many worst-case-scenario contingency plans have not been enacted, EY anticipates ongoing operational and staff moves from financial services firms across Europe as Brexit increasingly becomes part of a broader conversation about strategic business drivers and operating models

There has been no post-Brexit boom in financial services [2], with a variety of "business friendly deregulation" changes either "yet to be implemented" [as of Dec 2023] and with "none so far having a substantial impact".

[1] https://www.ey.com/en_uk/news/2022/03/ey-financial-services-...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/post-brexit-big-bang-reform...

2 comments

> The OP is right – at least according to Ernst and Young [1], who wrote in 2022 that:

> Since the UK’s EU referendum, 44% (97 out of 222) of the largest UK financial services firms have announced plans to move some UK operations and/or staff to the EU – a figure that nearly doubled between March 2017 (53 out of 222, 24%) and March 2021 (95 out of 222, 43%)

> In the last quarter [i.e. Q1 2022], the number of Brexit-related staff relocations to the EU has been further revised down, from 7,400 in December 2021 to just over 7,000 as March 2022 closes – significantly down from the peak of 12,500 announced in 2016

the number of people employed in UK FS is 2.2 million, so that's 0.3%

for comparison: last year 87,000 new UK jobs were added

structually most of these 2.2 million serve the UK domestic market and were never at risk of going to the EU

> In the last quarter [i.e. Q1 2022], the number of Brexit-related staff relocations to the EU has been further revised down, from 7,400 in December 2021 to just over 7,000 as March 2022 closes – significantly down from the peak of 12,500 announced in 2016

it’s interesting that there was no mass relocation of jobs out of London:

https://www.morganmckinley.com/uk/article/london-employment-...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/385366/uk-finance-insura...