Leeds is now firmly established as the UK’s Northern Powerhouse of financial services, with the city and the wider West Yorkshire region recognised as a national engine for growth, innovation, and opportunity. The latest figures show that West Yorkshire is home to over 18,000 business, financial, and professional services (BFPS) firms, employing 192,000 people and generating £15 billion in Gross Value Added (GVA) in 2023, accounting for a fifth of the region’s economy.

The latest national Business Confidence Monitor (BCM) shows that business sentiment deteriorated into negative territory in Q3 2025. This increased pessimism is underpinned by elevated concern over the tax burden, as well as above-average inflation and weak domestic and export sales growth eroding businesses’ profit margins.

As the latest intake of freshers start their first year at university, in the north gaps remain between aspiration and opportunity.

For decades, the North of England has been cast in the shadows of Westminster and the South East, a region with enormous potential but held back by underinvestment and uneven opportunity. That narrative is being rewritten, and nowhere is that transformation more evident than in Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, the two productivity powerhouses reshaping Britain's economic geography.