City jobs rising as legal hiring counters bank staff bloodbath
LEGAL services jobs in the City increased rapidly last year, outweighing even the dramatic fall in bank employment and pushing total headcount in the square mile up through 2012, new figures revealed yesterday.
A total of 117,800 people are now employed in legal services, TheCityUK found, an increase of 2.5 per cent on the year.
And headcount in accounting and management consulting edged up 0.3 per cent to 191,400.
Those increases outweighed the 1.2 per cent fall in bank jobs to 144,300 and the 1.7 per cent drop in insurance roles to 71,200.
Those changes contribute to an overall rise of 0.3 per cent in finance and professional services jobs, taking overall headcount to 665,700.
That is up from a low of 635,900 in 2010.
“English law is becoming the law of choice for international business and companies come to London and the UK because they know they will find world class lawyers, mediators and arbitrators,” explained TheCityUK’s chief executive Chris Cummings.