The City of London

Royds has always been based in the City of London – a square mile guarded by dragons!

Financial centre
It is the hub of the UK’s world leading financial sector. We are involved with the City of London Corporation, the livery companies and professional societies, the banking sector and the major international financial corporations for which the City is well known.

Legal profession
London is pretty important for the legal profession too – we are but a few minutes from the Central Criminal Court, known as “The Old Bailey” – and a few minutes further down Fleet Street there are The Royal Courts of Justice. Mind you, we are slightly further away from Westminster and the houses of Parliament.

Small businesses
At Royds we are also closely involved with the smaller businesses who are the lifeblood of the local community and we help international companies – both big and small – invest in and set up operations in the City and surrounding London Boroughs.

Historic sights
Our international business visitors always admire the historic buildings of St Paul’s Cathedral, the Bank of England, Mansion House (home to the Lord Mayor of London), Guildhall and its marvellous City Business Library and, just across the river, Shakespeare’s Globe.

One of our favourites – just down the road on Fleet Street – is St Bride’s Church – known as the “journalist’s” church. A beautiful quiet and green space surrounds it.

Modern developments
We are proud to be so close to many of the City’s most exciting new developments – the fantastic One New Change retail development, the Millennium Bridge (which we cross to go to late Friday evening openings at Tate Modern) and all the marvellous new office developments. And we can just about see The Shard rising up across the river at London Bridge. At present, Blackfriars station – a few minutes walk – is closed, but we are excited about this major redevelopment project.

London leads in Europe
Think London provides lots of information about London but here are just a few of the facts and figures they present:

  • No 1 European City for Business – Voted top city for 21st year running in 2010
  • Transport hub – Direct flights to 530 destinations from London’s five airports, high speed train links to Paris and Brussels and 80 terminal Port of London
  • Flexible – Fewer restrictions to doing business than any other major European country – and one of most flexible labour markets
  • Tax efficient – UK Corporation tax will reduce from 28% to 25% over the next four years
  • Workforce – London’s 9.8 million people where a third have a university degree
  • Global brands – A third of the world’s largest companies are headquartered in London
  • Foreign investment – A quarter of London businesses (over 20,000) are foreign owned. London attracts more foreign investment than any other European country
  • Wealthy people – Average disposable income in London is $1,455 per week – the highest regional figure in Europe. And 28 billionaires live here
  • Diplomatic – 175 of the United Nations’s 191 member countries have embassies in London
  • Diverse – More than 300 languages are spoken here and more than a quarter of all Londoners were born outside the UK

London is also home to the creative industries in the UK:

  • London’s creative industry is the capital’s second largest sector, worth $32 billion per year, generating 16% of the city’s annual gross value added (GVA)
  • Nearly 400,000 people work in London’s creative industries – 77,000 people are directly employed in film, video and broadcasting
  • London is home to the world’s six largest film studios, four largest media companies and major broadcasters such as the BBC, Channel 4, MTV, Sony, Discovery and CBS as well as numerous CGI and other advanced media companies
  • London hosts Europe’s largest cluster of marketing services business – employing  over 100,000 people and is home to international industry bodies including the Marketing Society and the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Seven of the top 10 PR agencies worldwide have their corporate headquarters in London
  • London is a major fashion centre and the sector contributes nearly £21 billion to the UK economy and, being the 15th largest sector, employs nearly a million people

And, of course, we are all very excited about the forthcoming 2012 Olympics which has a number of events right here on our doorstep.

We hope very much you will be able to visit us – so you can see some of what London has to offer for yourself.

Please contact us for further information.

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