Students graduating into the financial sector have been leaving London for provincial cities, reports James Middleton

The findings, published in City AM by correspondent Oliver Gill, suggest that young people are shunning the capital in favour of smaller cities such as Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham. Consulting firm Accenture reports that their hiring rates from metropolitan areas outside of London has risen sharply from 3% of their total intake in 2015 to 11% in 2017, while accountancy firm EY claim the proportion of their roles being filled in London has fallen by 9%.

This news comes alongside the discovery that, among the millennial generation as a whole, 30,000 more people left London than arrived. Naomi Smith, the executive director for campaigns at London First, laid the blame with an extremely high cost of living and rents much higher than the rent on equivalent properties elsewhere in England.

Despite this, opinions on the capital’s future are optimistic. Speaking exclusively to JLDN, post-graduate marketing lecturer Dag Bennett stated that although London’s cost of living is “ridiculous”, he expects the city to remain the dominant force in the financial sector.

Students at LSBU claim they have no interest in leaving the city after graduation. One student claimed he found it simple to manage the cost of living and stated that, with a population of nine million and tens of thousands of students making their home in the city every year, the city must be doing something right and he had no intention of leaving.

With the regions on the rise, it looks like there’s going to be more options for graduates than ever before. But, here at LSBU, it doesn’t look like London is going anywhere.