Core Cities
With a population of over 1.1 million people, Birmingham is the largest city outside of London. Centrally located and at the heart of the motorway network, 90 per cent of the UK is within a four-hour travel time to Birmingham. The planned development of HS2 will directly link the city into Europe’s high speed rail network and cut journey times into London to just 49 minutes.
The city boasts the largest concentration of businesses outside of the capital and is home to over 30,000 companies including almost 900 international firms such as Jaguar Land Rover, Cadbury, Amey and Deutsche Bank. Birmingham is therefore a major regional centre of employment with half a million people employed in the city.
Whilst proudly maintaining its heritage as a centre for manufacturing, the city has seen rapid growth in high value added sectors such as financial and professional services and is an internationally recognised conference destination. In relation to leisure tourism, Birmingham is growing from strength to strength and during 2015 the city attracted a record 38.1million visitor - contributing £6.2 billion to the local economy.
