London’s global finance dominance is more entrenched than at any point since the Brexit vote, but a New Financial index published this week shows domestic financial activity has barely moved, raising questions about the City’s contribution to the broader British economy.
The think tank scores financial centres on the dollar value of market activity they attract relative to the United States. The UK received an overall score of 54 on that basis. New Financial’s own report page carries a score of 35 for the UK; the think tank has not publicly clarified the discrepancy, which may reflect different editions or metric subsets. The article proceeds on the basis of the 54 figure as reported. The US, the index benchmark, scored 84 out of 100, leading in 17 of 21 domestic sectors and 11 of 21 international sectors.
The index covers more than 60 markets across more than 40 metrics of domestic and international activity.
London’s Global Finance Dominance Outpaces All European Rivals
The UK’s score of 54 towers above the combined totals of Germany (13), Luxembourg (9), France (9), the Netherlands (7), Ireland (5), Switzerland (5), Spain (3) and Sweden (3). The City conducts more international financial activity than the next eight largest European centres combined.
Cross-border flows account for 56 per cent of all measured UK financial activity, placing London above Hong Kong (50 per cent), Luxembourg (45 per cent), Singapore (31 per cent) and the United States (26 per cent) on that measure.
International market activity in the UK grew by 20 per cent over the past decade, above the global average of 17 per cent. The City of London Corporation’s 2025 benchmarking analysis confirmed London as the top global financial centre for the fifth consecutive year.
Employment has grown alongside activity. The City of London Corporation’s February 2026 factsheet, drawing on the ONS Business Register and Employment Survey 2024, puts the workforce at 676,000, equivalent to one in every 48 British workers. That compares with roughly 500,000 before the Brexit referendum. Wall Street’s top banks added around 11,000 staff to EU branches post-Brexit to meet European regulatory requirements, but London’s overall headcount continued to grow.
According to the City of London Corporation’s City Statistics Briefing, the City accounts for one in every five financial services jobs in Great Britain. The wider financial and professional services sector generated £323 billion in economic output, exported over £186 billion, and contributed £110 billion in tax revenue in 2023, representing 12 per cent of total UK tax receipts.
Domestic Score of Nine Signals a Gap the City Cannot Ignore
Against London’s global finance dominance, the domestic picture looks sparse. Domestic activity grew by just three per cent over the decade, against an international average of 18 per cent. The UK scored nine for domestic financial activity, placing it fourth globally but far below its international ranking.
New Financial warned that the City’s international standing was ‘much more significant than its domestic role in financing the British economy’.
‘This is not good news given the UK’s need to boost economic growth and close its significant investment gaps,’ the report said.
The domestic component of the index captures activity tied to specific markets: bank lending to local companies, infrastructure funding, and pension investment in domestic assets. On funded pension assets linked to domestic growth, the UK scored six out of 100. Around three per cent of pension fund money now sits in British stocks, against roughly 50 per cent a quarter of a century ago.
The report also found that the UK’s broader business environment worsened on 10 out of 15 metrics over the past decade, with tax competitiveness and infrastructure quality singled out.
The City of London Corporation has consistently pressed the government to address the domestic investment shortfall, pointing to pension reform and infrastructure spending as levers. Whether the gap between London’s international stature and its domestic score narrows will depend in part on how quickly those reforms take effect.
