Directors move north
Article Date: Apr 22 2008More company directors are choosing to live outside London and the South East, according to research from data analysis company KDB. The study reports a ‘gradual migration of company directors to more northerly regions, as well as Scotland and Wales’.
London still has the highest density of company directors in the country: 10.4 per cent of the adult population compared to 5.9 per cent across the UK as a whole. In certain postcode districts of the capital, the proportion of company directors approaches one in five adults: it is 18.3 per cent in Hampstead (NW3), for example, 18.2 per cent in Barbican/Broadgate (EC2) and 18.0 per cent in Golders Green (NW11).
However, the proportion of directors has declined in London and the South East since KDB’s last survey in 2004, while Wales, Scotland, the North East, the North West and the Midlands have all seen increases in director density. The largest increase is in the North East, where the figure has increased from 3.8 to 4.2 per cent.
Among major cities and their surrounding areas, Bristol has the highest density of directors, at 6.7 per cent of all adults, followed by Southampton at 6.6 per cent, Leeds at 5.3 per cent and Birmingham at 5.2 per cent.
The study concludes that while the South still plays a dominant role in UK enterprise, ‘the picture is gradually changing’, and the growth in importance of northern regions ‘may mark the start of a much-needed rebalancing of the country’s “real” economy away from the magnet of the capital’.
