23-07-2025
The Northern city bucking broken Britain's brain drain
'Levelling up' has been part of the political parlance since the Conservatives' 2019 manifesto, spawning an eponymous government department which promised economic prosperity would finally spread further afield than London and the South East, across otherwise flagging parts of the UK.
Yet that goal – along with the department's name – appears to have fallen by the wayside, if today's graduates are anything to go by.
Six in 10 top academic achievers from outside London leave their hometown by the age of 32, according to figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). The research also highlighted that graduates born in 1997 are 8pc more likely to relocate for work than those born in 1986.
Just over a quarter of young workers with the top 5pc of GCSE scores reside in London, despite only half of that number having grown up there. Such movement of the country's most academically gifted workers exacerbates regional division, the report found.
Many ambitious young workers find they have little choice but to move to London in order to secure the career they want. This was the case for Kirstie-Anne Woodman, who moved to the capital after graduating with a degree in international relations and politics aged 22.
'I knew that if I wanted to maximise my income and do well in the future, that I needed to come down to London to get a good career, because London is the corporate hotspot,' Woodman, now 26, says.
Trying to flourish as a corporate communications consultant in her hometown of Milton Keynes was not an option, she explains – for her, or the vast majority of her cohort from the University of Birmingham.
'By going to a top university you are typically a high-flyer, [and] somewhat ambitious – just by virtue of having gone to that institution,' Woodman says of her reasoning for the move. 'Quite literally all of my friends are here now.'
The motivations are simple, with career progression and money chief among them. 'I know that were I still living in Milton Keynes, I would earn significantly less than I do now,' Woodman adds.
Xiaowei Xu, who authored the IFS report, says that as this trend spreads, it 'massively reinforces' Britain's geographical inequalities.
'It's a bit of a self-reinforcing cycle, in that we've got these better jobs in London, and therefore London pulls in talent from all across the country,' she says. As a result, 'we have places outside the South East especially suffering from that brain drain,' Xu adds.
Companies are looking beyond London
There are efforts to buck this trend, as other UK cities look to attract talent of their own. Manchester is successfully pulling in early-career workers from surrounding areas. These workers – unlike those who leave for London – are more likely to return to the locale they grew up in once they reach their early 30s.
Manchester is a 'great base' for career-starters, says Paul Marriott, managing director of recruitment service, Hays. '[The city has] emerged as a major hub – particularly in sectors like tech, digital marketing, finance and professional services,' he says.
'The city's strong university presence and vibrant business ecosystem make it a natural choice for companies looking to tap into fresh talent.'
Last month, at an event in its £1.7bn innovation district, Manchester positioned itself as the burgeoning capital of the UK's £120m life sciences sector – and businesses across the board appear to have cottoned on to its appeal.
After launching its newsroom in Leeds a couple of years ago, Channel 4 is to open offices at Manchester's £150m No 1 St Michael's, while BT has also signed off on a new flagship hub for 2,000 staff. At the end of last year, IBM also confirmed it would be pitching up in the city.
Governmental departments have also been on the move away from London. In May, it was announced that thousands of civil service jobs would be relocated across UK towns and cities, requiring more senior and policy roles to be based outside the capital.
'We're certainly seeing a noticeable shift as companies look beyond London to expand their footprint,' says Marriott, with the likes of Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Bristol 'investing heavily in infrastructure, innovation hubs and culture to attract top-tier talent'. From a recruitment standpoint, he says this decentralisation is creating 'exciting opportunities'.
It's beneficial for workers, too. 'Professionals now have more access to high-quality opportunities without the financial strain of London living, while employers benefit from a broader, more diverse talent pool,' Marriott says.
However, the expansion of cities outside London can compound the issue of young people upping sticks in smaller towns. 'It can mean that other regions – particularly rural or less economically developed areas – can struggle to retain graduates,' Marriott says.
Hybrid work, he suggests, may be one way to stave this off, as it allows people to stay local while accessing opportunities on a national or international scale. But the buzz being generated by cities investing big will inevitably reinforce talent silos across the UK.
'The key challenge now is ensuring that regions outside the major cities continue to invest in career pathways and infrastructure to keep talent engaged and rooted,' Marriott adds.
'It's a myth that we're earning bucketloads in London'
If well-executed, this investment could lure graduates away from the likes of London, where the financial strain is increasingly being felt.
Between the rising cost of living and paltry salaries – in April, a quarter of entry-level jobs requiring a degree paid just above the minimum wage, while in January, the average rent in London was £2,300 per month – corporate life in the capital doesn't always feel lucrative, Woodman says.
'It's a myth that in London we're earning bucketloads. In the grand scheme of things, I still believe I'm underpaid for the city in which I live, but it is better than being in the suburbs.'
Xu says that even if figures don't currently look all too promising for graduates moving to the capital, relocating for work does usually pay off.
'At the start of their careers, there's not a huge difference between graduate pay in London and other cities like Oxford and Cambridge. Then, several years into their careers, that gap massively widens,' she explains.
'People at the very top of the distribution of ability are going to have much, much higher incomes. And as a proportion of their incomes, rents will be lower, so they will still see substantial gains to being in London.'
Xu believes that while Manchester has increased its ability to draw leavers back, the influx of graduates descending on London – and never returning – is set to continue.
'People are moving to London because there are opportunities, but then there are opportunities because all the talent is in London,' she says. 'It's hard to break out of that cycle.'
