How Scotland’s crucial financial services sector added 13,000 jobs in 2024

Scotland’s trade body for the financial and professional services sector has hailed a record-breaking year.

Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE) said membership had increased over the past year by 10 per cent, with the organisation now boasting 125 businesses across its network. It said the growth reflected its “continuing success in advocating for the sector”.

SFE’s growth strategy has continued to yield dividends, it added, with financial and professional services in Scotland growing 3 per cent year on year in 2024 to account for some 10 per cent of the Scottish economy (about £14.8 billion in gross value added (GVA), a measure of net economic contribution) and creating in the region of 13,000 additional “high-skill, high-wage” jobs. The sector as a whole now employs just under 150,000 people across the country.

Sandy Begbie is the chief executive of Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE). Picture by Graham Flack

SFE said Scotland had further solidified its reputation as the UK’s top financial services destination outside London, with significant fintech - financial technology - investment growth and rising global rankings for Edinburgh and Glasgow in the Global Financial Centres Index and the Global Green Finance Index.

Sandy Begbie, chief executive of SFE, said the progress over the last year provided a strong foundation for 2025.

“2024 has been another strong year for Scottish Financial Enterprise, with a membership surge of almost 10 per cent meaning we now have 125 of Scotland’s most successful companies in our network,” he noted. “It is particularly satisfying to note that Scotland’s financial and professional services sector as a whole has also enjoyed significant growth of 3 per cent, helping create an additional 13,000 high-skill, high-wage jobs across the country.

“This is yet more evidence of just how important Scotland’s financial and professional services industry is to achieving sustainable economic growth and job creation here.”

He added: “With the right support from both the UK and Scottish governments, Scotland’s financial and professional services sector can do even more to boost growth and create jobs in 2025 - and Scottish Financial Enterprise will continue to advocate for that support, and the industry as a whole, at the highest levels next year.”

SFE is the representative body for member companies that range in size from global organisations headquartered in Scotland like Abrdn, Baillie Gifford and Royal Bank of Scotland, UK and international companies with substantial operations in Scotland such as Barclays, Blackrock and Morgan Stanley, and small, locally-based fintechs and support companies drawn from all areas of financial services.

Begbie recently argued that if financial inclusion is to be increased in Scotland, the industry needed to step up to the challenge. Speaking at The Lang Cat consultancy’s Home Game 4 event in Edinburgh, during the ‘State of the Scottish Nation: What next for financial services?’ session, he explained that at least 100,000 people in Scotland did not have access to a bank account.

The SFE chief said that the organisation would be working with the likes of the third sector, banks and the Financial Conduct Authority to address the problem of having a large “unbanked population” in Scotland.