June 2015 Edinburgh entrepreneurs SMART success Seven University of Edinburgh academic and student entrepreneurs have secured almost 900,000 ( 625,000 from SMART: SCOTLAND) support to develop their technology-led businesses. New Link to Middle East Etihad Airways has launched a new daily flight from Edinburgh to Abu Dhabi. Number of Edinburgh school leavers gaining employment increases The number of school leavers in the Capital moving into work, further education or training has reached 93% - a record high and well above the Scotland average. West End firms sign up for BID scheme West End traders have voted in favour of creating a Business Improvement District (BID). The BID is expected to raise 115,000 a year to invest directly back into the area. Bicycles allowed on Edinburgh s trams Following a successful two month trial, bicycles are allowed on Edinburgh s trams at off-peak times.
Scottish GDP up 0.6% (Q4 2014) Business incorporations up 17.2% between Jun 14 and Jun 15 22 major FDI investments in 12 months to May down 27% on previous year
1.5% claimant count in May 15, down from 2.5% in May 14 1050 house sales in Apr 15, up 14% from Apr 14 Hotel occupancy 87.2 % in May 15, up from 85.5 % in May 14
Major FDIs in 2014 Destination City Projects Capex (US$ m) Avg Capex (US$m) Jobs Created Avg Jobs Companies London 398 8,210 20.6 22,051 55 382 Edinburgh 37 683 34 2,017 208 37 Belfast 29 738.2 25.5 4,951 170 27 Manchester 23 434.2 18.9 1,595 69 23 Aberdeen 21 1,010.8 48.1 1,926 91 21 Birmingham 17 533.4 31.4 2,346 138 17 Glasgow 14 238.0 17.0 3,628 259 13 Leeds 8 72.6 9.1 1,043 130 8 Liverpool 7 366.4 52.3 999 142 7 Bristol 7 57.9 8.3 282 40 7 Newcastle upon Tyne 7 171.9 24.6 912 130 6 Sheffield 5 323.6 64.7 400 80 4 Nottingham 4 23.9 6.0 247 61 4 Bradford 1 4.6 4.6 51 51 1 Source: fdi Markets
Diverse sector with critical mass in banking, life insurance and pensions, asset servicing and investment management The city employs around 35,000 people in financial services and is home to two of the world s 150 top financial services companies as ranked by Forbes More than 90% of all Scottish fund managers are based in the city region Headquarters for Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group, Standard Life, Scottish Widows, Aegon Asset Management UK, Baillie Gifford, Martin Currie Key companies : Rathbone Brothers, Aberdeen Asset Management, F&C Asset Management, BlackRock International and the asset management arm of the Bank of New York Mellon For more information visit the Invest Edinburgh Financial Services website
Combination of world-leading academic researchers, cutting edge companies and science parks encourages close collaboration Seven specialist science parks around Edinburgh including Edinburgh BioQuarter, Roslin BioCentre and Pentlands Science Park are home to many of the city s Life Science companies BioQuarter is the commercialisation arm of Europe's fastest-growing academic medical centre aiming to accelerate the development of new treatments for human and animal diseases Key companies: Toshiba Medical Visualization Systems, GlaxoSmithKyle, Roslin Cells, Touch Bionics, Edinburgh Instruments For more information visit the Invest Edinburgh Life Sciences website
Highly skilled workforce: three universities with computer science departments University of Edinburgh s School of Informatics is home to 1,000 students and has more World Leading and Internationally Excellent Research than any other UK university. Thriving start-up scene due to well developed Angel Funding network and a close-knit community of entrepreneurs Key companies: Skyscanner, Fanduel, Craneware, FreeAgent, Kotikan, Amazon, Microsoft, Rockstar North For more information, visit the StartEDIN website
World's festival capital, with 13 international festivals and a host of other major events throughout the year, generating 261m in economic impact (2012) 11 of the top 20 visited attractions in Scotland are located in the Edinburgh City Region A UNESCO World Heritage Site 14 million bed nights a year; average hotel occupancy levels (80.4% in 2014) are among the highest in Europe and beyond, peaking at 90.6% (July), and 92.7% (August) Business tourism generates around 300 million a year for the city region For more information visit the Invest Edinburgh Tourism website
Sector encompasses advertising, architecture, art and design, computer and video games, crafts, designer fashion, film and video, music, the performing arts, publishing, software and broadcasting. Home to national institutions including The Royal Scottish Academy (founded 1826) the National Gallery of Art (1859), the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (1889), National Library of Scotland (1925), the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (1960) and the Scottish Arts Council (1994) Creative Edinburgh connects its members to available support, programmed events, business networks, skills development and investment opportunities State-of-the-art business incubator at the Creative Exchange to foster new talent and support the growth of startup and digital media companies For more information, download the Think Creative, Think Edinburgh brochure
PWC predicts Edinburgh will have the highest hotel occupancy rates in Europe in 2015 (PWC European Cities Hotel Forecast, 2014 and 2015) The city is home to more than 82,000 university and college students, including more than 17,000 international students The City s carbon emissions have fallen by 9.2% since 2005 Edinburgh Airport is Scotland s largest airport and the fifth largest in the UK by passenger movements, with over 40 carriers servicing more than 100 destinations Edinburgh was been ranked the top mid-sized city in Europe overall in fdi magazine s European Cities and Regions of the Future 2014/15 awards.