The UK's Post-Industrial Economy
Geography: AQA GCSE, topic 5.2.2
What Does the UK's Post-Industrial Economy Look Like?
The UK's post-industrial economy is more focused on the services, finance, information technology, and research industries.
Service industries
- Service industries include shops (retail), cinemas, entertainment venues, experiences (like Flight Club Darts or Junkyard Golf), and personal services (like hairdressers and beauticians).
- In the UK in 2020, 80% of workers worked in the Services industry.
- In 2019, 2.9 million people worked in Retail in the UK.
Finance (financial services)
- London has become a financial services hub and is in the top 3 global financial centres in the world with New York and Hong Kong.
- Lots of hedge funds, investment banks, and pension funds operate in London, (mainly from Mayfair, Bank, and Canary Wharf).
- Barclays and HSBC have their headquarters in London and Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, and Citibank all have offices in Canary Wharf.
Research
- Oxford University, Cambridge University, UCL and Imperial College London are all in the top 10 universities in the world.
- Great universities and well-trained university graduates create a good environment for R&D (research and development).
- Lots of UK universities' research budgets are tied to European Union funding.
Science and business parks
- Science and business parks are home to lots of research that happens in quaternary industries.
- Positioning science parks near universities and major towns allows the science parks to attract the best researchers and business people in the same place.
- Cambridge Science Park is near Cambridge University.
- Oxford University Sciences Innovation has sold the IP from university 'spin-outs' to investors like Lansdowne Partners.
Information technology
- London is the largest hub for start-ups in Europe. Lots of venture capital funds like Atomico and LocalGlobe operate in London.
- Businesses like Microsoft, Facebook, and Google have opened new offices in the Shoreditch and Kings Cross areas of London.
Test yourself on The UK's Post-Industrial Economy
Which industries are growing and which are declining as the UK moves towards a post-industrial economy?
Which industry is declining as the UK moves towards a post-industrial economy?
Why is the number of science and business parks in the UK growing?