Business and industry facts

• London has more VAT registered businesses (288,400) than Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined (271,800) (1)
  
  
• London has been ranked the number one city for business for the eighteenth year in a row, in an annual survey of senior executives from 507 European companies (2)
  
  
• London's economy generated $452 billion in 2005 and is predicted to rise to $708 billion by 2020, making London the fourth largest city economy in the world (behind Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles) (3)
  
  
• 15.7 per cent of people in work in London are self employed, compared with an England average of 12.7 per cent (4)
  
  
• 8 per cent of London's workforce is employed in the manufacturing sector (5)
  
  
• around half a million people in London are employed in the creative industries sector. One in five of all new jobs in London is in creative industries (6)
  
  
• one in three of all people employed in the financial services sector in the UK is employed in London (7)
  
  
• there are more branches and subsidiaries of international banks in London than in any other city in the world (8)
  
  
• the median gross weekly pay for full-time employees in London is £581, compared with £462 for England as a whole (9)

Sources

(1) Table 6.6 Business registrations, Focus on London 2007, ONS/GLA
(2) European Cities Monitor 2006, Cushman and Wakefield
(3) PWC - global city forecasts 2007
(4) Borough indicator profilerwww.go-london.gov.uk/tools/indicatorprofiler.xls Opens in a new window, Government Office for London, Aug 2007
(5) Think Londonwww.thinklondon.com Opens in a new window, 2008
(6) ibid 
(7) ibid
(8) ibid
(9) Borough indicator profilerwww.go-london.gov.uk/tools/indicatorprofiler.xls Opens in a new window, Government Office for London, Nov 2007