Andy Burnham's devolution push to drive 90,000 jobs out of London

The North West is expected to gain the most from the shift, attracting between 15,000 and 22,500 roles

Prime Minister Andy Burnham's devolution push could drive around 90,000 professional jobs out of London and into regional cities over the next five years.

Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham are expected to be among the biggest winners as the Government looks to shift jobs and investment away from the capital.

Around 90,000 professional roles could move from London to other parts of Britain by 2031, according to analysis from recruitment firm Robert Walters.

The shift could bring up to £9billion in employer spending into regional economies over the next five years.

That figure could climb to as much as £15billion once the wider impact of workers spending money on housing and local services is taken into account.

The North West is expected to gain the most from the shift, attracting between 15,000 and 22,500 roles, around a quarter of the total.

This could provide an estimated £2.3billion boost to the regional economy.

The Midlands, including Birmingham, is forecast to gain around a fifth of the roles leaving London, equivalent to between 12,000 and 18,000 jobs.

Yorkshire could attract a further 15 per cent, or between 9,000 and 13,000 roles.

Jonny Bohane, senior manager for market intelligence at Robert Walters, said the projections point to "a rebalancing of the scales towards stronger regional jobs growth".

A cluster of other cities, including Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cambridge, Newcastle, Liverpool, Reading and Cardiff are set to share the remaining relocations, with between 24,000 and 36,000 roles distributed among them.

Robert Walters built its projections by combining historical relocation patterns from major employers with its own placement data and LinkedIn talent movement figures.

Mr Burnham, who served as Mayor of Greater Manchester until June, has pledged to "rewire the state" by redistributing power away from Westminster.

He has framed the agenda as delivering "growth in every postcode" and underscored his intent by establishing No 10 North, a Manchester-based satellite of the Downing Street operation.

Britain remains the most fiscally centralised nation among the OECD's 38 member states, with just five per cent of taxes and 20 per cent of spending decisions managed at a local level, a dynamic Mr Burnham has made it his central mission to overhaul.

His plans include bolstering the authority of regional mayors and granting them a portion of income tax revenues raised in their areas, with London currently producing one in every four pounds generated nationally.

The migration of professional roles away from the capital is not, however, a phenomenon that began with Burnham's premiership.

Major firms such as Deloitte and Goldman Sachs have spent years establishing significant operations in Birmingham, Manchester and other regional centres.

The Bank of England is also in the process of relocating roughly 10 per cent of its workforce to Leeds by next year.

Daniel Harris, managing director for the UK and Ireland at Robert Walters, said the pace of change would only quicken as "cost considerations remain high, and hybrid working allows organisations to build more geographically diverse teams".

He noted that businesses are typically retaining their most senior leaders in the capital while recruiting more junior staff from regional talent pools.

Separate data from HR platform Employment Hero reinforces the trend, showing that small- and medium-sized business payrolls in the North grew 6.3 per cent quarter-on-quarter in July — double the rate recorded in London.

Growing numbers of workers have also been leaving the capital of their own accord, leveraging flexible working arrangements to escape London's steep living costs while keeping their city salaries.

London's population dropped last year for the first time since the 1980s, excluding the pandemic period. Scotland, Buckinghamshire, Birmingham, Essex, Brighton and Bristol proved the most popular destinations, with families with children leading the departure.

Mr Harris said the ripple effects extend well beyond office walls: "Increased demand supports everything from transport and housing to cafés, co-working spaces and the wider network of local businesses that keep these cities running."