Brexit Banking Job Losses Could Cause a Start-up Surge in London
As thousands of traditional banking jobs look set to leave London following the Brexit victory on Thursday, we expect London to see a surge in new start-ups, particularly in Fintech, launched by former City workers.
Jay Dickieson, Managing Partner at The Summerhill Group, a London-based market intelligence and strategy advisory agency for start-ups, said:
“Over the weekend, and in the days since the vote, we’ve had enquiries from bankers extremely worried about their jobs moving to Paris, Frankfurt or elsewhere. As they survey their alternatives, many are concluding the only way to match the potential financial upside of a career in the City is to develop, or join a start-up in London’s thriving Fintech scene.
We believe there are thousands of potential new entrepreneurs looking for help turning ideas they didn’t have the incentive to pursue before the vote.
This could be a game changer – you have a highly educated, highly skilled, highly ambitious work force, presumably with the prospect of significant severance packages, looking for what’s next. For many, the only way they will be able to match the environment and potential financial upside will be to take the leap into the world of start-ups.
On a much smaller scale, we saw a similar phenomenon in Waterloo, Canada with the drastic downsizing of Blackberry. As thousands of highly skilled, highly paid workers were made redundant, many took their severance pay-outs and started their own tech companies leading to hundreds of millions in venture capital investment and thousands of new jobs. This investment lead to the creation of huge names in tech, like Kik Messenger.”
Victoria Arkus, Co-Founder of The Summerhill Group said:
“While we have obviously been advising our clients that the overall economic impact will likely be negative, we do expect a silver lining in the transfer of experience, capital and expertise from the City to the Silicon Roundabout.”
-ENDS-
NOTE TO EDITORS:
Contact:
Jay Dickieson
Managing Partner, The Summerhill Group
E: jay@thesummerhillgroup.com
P: 020 3355 2060
M: 07825 001 031
About The Summerhill Group:
The Summerhill Group was founded to help brands, retailers and start-ups grow their businesses through leading market intelligence and strategy advice.
The company was created by a group of consultants who had worked on strategy projects with FTSE-100 leaders; delivered market intelligence for some of the UKs best brands; and either run or advised some of the UKs most exciting start-ups.
This unique combination of market intelligence, strategy and start-up experience means our clients benefit from a unique perspective, and can be confident in our consultants, knowledge and expertise alongside our proven track record.
We currently work with clients in the UK, and start-ups in other countries like Canada looking to enter the UK market. We are also part of the WeWork start-up community based in London.