Professional & Business Services Baseline Report.

Client

Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP)

Local Authority

Liverpool City Council

Sectors

Public Sector

Key Project Information

  • Our economics team produced a business review on behalf of the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and it’s Professional and Business Services Sector (PBS) board.
  • The report highlighted growth areas in the region, whilst showing where efforts need to be focused to improve productivity and future proof growth.

This baseline review provides us with a clear picture of the sector as well as an analysis of the critical matters that need to be faced to keep the sector moving forward. There is much to be positive about and some of the statistics mentioned in this report really are impressive.

Steve Stuart, Chair of the PBS Board

The report shows how the PBS sector plays a crucial role as an enabler in the local economy – providing 107,000 jobs across 12,000 companies and contributing £8bn annually in GVA. The report also showed strong growth in the sector – up by 41% between 2010 and 2017, compared to 23.5% across other sectors.

Additionally, around 20,000 jobs are forecast to be created in the sector across the region over the next 20 years – helped by the significant labour pool from the universities. The challenge is to promote growth in sectors that have higher levels of productivity to ensure we are creating jobs for the large number of graduates – 20,000 every year in PBS related subjects.

The report is a call to arms to the wider city region. It focuses on the priorities designed to support the sector’s future growth. These include – promoting the sector, supporting schools to prepare young people for the world of work, targeting inward investment activity, providing easy access to finance for high growth businesses and boosting the supply of Grade A office space available in the city region.

Other recommendations include supporting skills development in the PBS workforce, more co-ordination around school and business engagement, and working to improve five-year survival rates for local businesses. It also suggests there must be a strong focus on co-ordinating and supporting efforts to scale up local technology companies and secure a vibrant digital and creative community.

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