Despite warnings that Liverpool’s office market is stuck in a “vicious circle” of a Grade A shortage and headline rents so low they are failing to attract development, a new report is claiming that by 2020 the city will be a “jobs hotspot” for the digital and creative industry.
Earlier this month property agency Colliers International revealed prestige office rents in Manchester, at £34 per sq ft, were almost double Liverpool’s at £18. “That figure is at a level that doesn’t offer enough incentive for a developer to build Grade A office space without a pre-let agreement,” said Andy Delaney, Colliers’ Liverpool office head.
“It is a vicious circle. If an occupier came along with a requirement for a significant amount of space within a year, Liverpool city centre could not meet that requirement,” he added.
Now, a new survey — commissioned by the organisers of Liverpool’s International Festival for Business (IFB) 2016 — has underlined the shortage by claiming that as many as 2,000 jobs will be created in the city by the information technology and creative sector over the next five years.
The study, designed to offer a forecast of UK productivity, employment and wages to the year 2020, predicts Liverpool will achieve a 2.6 per cent employment growth by the end of the decade — outpacing cities such as Berlin, with an estimated one per cent growth, Tokyo’s 0.7 per cent and 1.7 per cent for Paris.
The research, carried out by Oxford Economics, also claims the Merseyside capital will pull ahead of Birmingham’s 2.5 per cent jobs rise and Glasgow’s 2.2 per cent, but fail to outpace Manchester which will produce a near four per cent increase in jobs by 2020.
Liverpool has seen more than 7,500 jobs created in its creative and digital sector since 2010, the majority concentrated around the Baltic Triangle area of the city. But the IFB study is showing an increasingly number of firms are moving into Liverpool’s central business district.
“This study indicates that the renaissance of the North is real, creating employment, particularly in the ‘knowledge sector’,” commented Max Steinberg, chair of IFB 2016 and chief executive of Liverpool Vision.
“What is particularly impressive is that Manchester and Liverpool are expected to outperform world class cities like Berlin and Paris for employment growth over the next five years.
“Too few people hear about the growing dynamism of the North and it’s time people gave it more recognition,” Steinberg added. “At next year’s International Festival for Business we will be proudly telling the world — and the rest of the UK — about the opportunities on offer to businesses in the North.”
Scheduled for 13 June to 1 July in Liverpool’s Exhibition Centre, next year’s showcase event has already confirmed a platform of international speakers that includes Edmund Strother Phelps Jr, an American economist and the winner of the 2006 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Also confirmed are FW De Klerk, the former South African president and Michael Nobel the Swedish-Russian entrepreneur.
Previous Post
Ikea poised to target High Street Stores
