Professional and Financial Services Sector

Contact Centres

Birmingham's Contact Centre Offer

For all the reasons listed below, Birmingham is the most credible and well-positioned destination for attracting your business' value-added, upstream UK and European contact centre operations.

If you require further information, or if we can help you assess the Birmingham offer in any other way, please do not hesitate to contact us at T: +44 (0)121 303 2222. Or, e-mail Margaret Blizzard.

To view details of the most recent Contact Centre Network event, click here.

Birmingham's Existing Contact Centre Cluster

• There are nearly 250 contact centres located in the Birmingham area, employing over 21,000 staff.
• A total of 494 contact centres are in the West Midlands region, employing almost 41,000 staff.

A sample of the businesses that have located contact centres in Birmingham include:

• Barclaycard
• Britannic Assurance
• BMG Research
• HFC Bank
• HSBC
• Kalamazoo
• Lloyds TSB
• Legal & General
• National Guarantee
• Primecare (part of Nestor Healthcare)
• Royal Bank of Scotland
• Signet Group
• Wesleyan

Rising Star

A comprehensive "Shared Service Centre for Europe" report, prepared by Oxford Intelligence/IBM Plant Location International in February 2004 found that Birmingham is in the "highest quality" group of European cities.

Birmingham was in the "star" category along with Amsterdam/Rotterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Dublin and Madrid. However, unlike these other cities, Birmingham also offers lower total operating costs and provides "very good value for money".

Overall, Birmingham was placed in the same ranks as Manchester, Glasgow, Dublin and Kent as a location of "star quality" and medium cost".

For more information about the Shared Service Centre for Europe report, click here.

A Large and Young Population

• Birmingham is the UK's 2nd largest city.
• Over 1 million people live within a reasonable 30-minute journey from central Birmingham, 725,500 are of working age.
  • This represents the largest catchment population of any location outside London
  • The regional workforce represented by the entire West Midlands is nearly 2.5 million. 
• 215,300 people (44.6%) work in private sector service industries.
  • This increases to over 70% when the public sector is included.
• Click here to find out more information about Birmingham's economic profile.
• 37% of Birmingham's population is 24 years of age or younger, compared with 31% for the UK.
• Birmingham's three major universities have over 61,000 students enrolled in higher education, producing nearly 19,000 graduates a year.
• 46,000 graduates are within a one-hour drive from Birmingham.
• Click here to view more information about Birmingham's academic excellence.

Excellent, Lower-Cost Workforce

• Labour costs are up to 13% less than London
  To find out more about Birmingham's labour market, click here.

Superior Office Space

• Prime office space costs are up to 40% less than London
• An up-to-date and detailed list of office space development is available by clicking here.
• To access the Property Search facility, click here. Registration is quick and easy for this free service.
• Click here to view more general information about Birmingham's office space.

Prime Business Environment

• Birmingham has 200 law firms, eight of the top ten accountancy firms, and one of Europe's largest insurance markets
• The United Kingdom's common law tradition makes Birmingham a more familiar environment than other non-UK European destinations for those businesses seeking to comply with the United States' Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2202. Click here to view more information.
• A small sample of international companies that have a significant presence in Birmingham include: Deloitte & Touche, Jaguar Ltd., PricewaterhouseCoopers, Merrill Lynch HSBC, Ernst & Young, Goodyear Dunlop, et al.
• For more information about Birmingham's strong business offer, including testimonials and case studies, click here.

Best Language Skills

• Birmingham has a large pool of people with language skills:
  • 9,500 language students enrol each year at local universities and training concerns including Brasshouse Centre.
  • There were over 3,000 undergraduate and post-graduate students studying languages in Birmingham
  • Brasshouse Centre alone offers courses in 30 languages to 6,000 learners each year by 120 foreign language teachers.
• More information about Birmingham's Academic Excellence can be found by clicking here.

World Class Telecommunications

• The whole of the city now offers 100'% digital telecommunications network coverage
  • All new businesses setting up in Birmingham are automatically connected to this latest technology
• Key network services such as ISDN2, ISDN30, Broadband access, SDH and ATM Technology are widely available, offering companies a complete package of state-of-the-art telecommunications applications
• More information about Birmingham's telecommunications infrastructure can be found here.

Top Quality of Life

• For quality of life, Birmingham ranks higher than Rome, Prague, Dubai, and Hong Kong
• Birmingham has more parks and open spaces than any other city in the United Kingdom, ranking Birmingham with many of the greenest cities in Europe
• Average house prices in Birmingham are 61% lower than London
• "The building, the art, the use of the water - it is an extraordinary jewel of a city", Bill Clinton
• Click here for more information about Birmingham's quality of life

Support Network

• Birmingham has its very own Contact Centre Network, facilitated by Locate in Birmingham. Click here to view more about past and future events.

Latest News

Click here to see the latest news releases

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