Gillmore Centre part of £1.5 billion roadmap for West Midlands economy

Warwick Business School and its Gillmore Centre for Financial Technology has joined forces with West Midlands body SuperTech to launch a roadmap for the tech sector that aims to deliver thousands of jobs and add £1.5 billion to the regional economy over the next 10 years.

SuperTech is the UK's first professional services technology (Proftech which includes Fintech, Proptech, Legaltech and Insurtech) supercluster and has today released an extensive Research and Innovation Roadmap with the goal of fostering substantial economic growth and generating more than 4,600 jobs in the West Midlands region over the next decade. 

The roadmap aligns with the vision and national agenda for long term prosperity in the UK as set out in the recent spring budget and reinforced by the UK Government’s Smart Data Roadmap. All outline the growth and importance of using data-led, digital activities to deliver productivity and high-value jobs across key sectors including banking, energy, finance, home buying, retail, telecommunications and transport.

Matt Hanmer, Honorary Research Fellow at the Gillmore Centre for Financial Technology, said: “We are excited by the Roadmap’s framework of activity and believe it will foster greater collaboration between industry and academic endeavour.

“We see clear opportunity to realise significant economic growth in our home region and beyond, and as a globally recognised research university and business school, the flourishing work of our Gillmore Centre for Financial Technology is directly aligned and motivated to help convert these insights into impact.” 

The UK’s digital and business, professional and financial services sectors have outpaced the growth of the UK economy over the last few years and the West Midlands’ professional services sector is nationally and internationally recognised as significant to this achievement.

Consisting of 50,000 active business, professional and financial services (BPFS) businesses in the region, employing 350,000 people, and contributing £28 billion gross value added (GVA) annually, the West Midlands is said to have the fastest growing tech sector in the UK, valued at £15.3 billion in 2023, growing around 10 per cent since 2021.

Analysis of the Proftech component sectors in the region shows:

• Fintech: estimated to generate more than £470 million in GVA in the region.
• Proptech: in the West Midlands 43 per cent of all Proftech businesses have a specific focus on property.
• Legaltech: fast emerging and nationally notable in Birmingham.

The Roadmap presents analysis and planned activities drawn from more than 150 hours of consultation with industry, academia and Proftech stakeholders. Participants reviewed existing and emerging trends relevant to professional services and Proftech from a regional, national and global perspective. The results uniquely target the joined-up adoption and use of Proftech to drive prosperity and improve social outcomes.

Four themes are identified as critical focus areas for innovation and research in and from the West Midlands; productivity, open data, sustainability, inclusion and wellness.

Driven by a commitment to these areas, the blueprint is an actionable programme of targeted initiatives to address challenges and opportunities through the collaborative work of industry participants (start-ups to large corporations) and educational institutions from across the West Midlands.

Hilary Smyth-Allen, SuperTech Executive Lead, said: “Globally we are on the brink of a new era for professional services technology as the requirements for smart, accelerated service provisioning in areas such as finance, home living and mobility are pushed forward by innovation and demand.

“This roadmap is not just about improved transformation and ambition; it is a unique, multi-year plan of joined-up initiatives that will fully enable and serve businesses, consumers and investors in the West Midlands and beyond.” 

The Gillmore Centre for Financial Technology was established in 2019 thanks to a £3 million donation by Clive Gillmore, founder and Group CEO of Mondrian Investment Partners and an alum of the University of Warwick.

It produces world-class research on all areas of Fintech, including the recent establishment of an open source Crypto Dashboard that tracks and analyses the price of more than 37,000 cryptocurrencies, comparing them to other indices like gold and the S&P 500.

The Centre has recently received another £1.25 million donation from a friend of the University based in India to launch the FutureFinance.AI Research Group that will draw interdisciplinary scholars and thinkers from across the world to research Proptech.

Stephen Browning, Challenge Director – Next Generation Services Innovate UK UKRI, said: “Whether they are global employers or early start-ups, professional companies have always flourished in the West Midlands.

“The region is at the heart of business and technology innovation in the UK and this roadmap introduces an exhilarating prospect for an area that is poised to transform the impact of Professional Services Technology on the advancing needs of consumers, communities and businesses.”

Ezechi Britton MBE, CEO of The Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT), added: “Through our own work we know the immense advancement potential of open data. By aligning this with productivity, sustainability, inclusion and wellness as critical focus areas for identified initiatives, this integrated roadmap sets out a successful path for consumer and business enablement in the West Midlands and the wider economy.”

Chris Hayward, Policy Chairman of the City of London Corporation, said: “In a global financial marketplace, the entire country needs to be working together: where the Square Mile succeeds, the West Midlands succeeds, and vice versa.

“Our relationship reflects our shared vision in technology, recognising that technology is central to both national economic growth and the continuing global strength of British financial and professional services.

“It is critical that the UK continues to be at the forefront of the digital agenda. The SuperTech roadmap provides both an actionable programme and a golden opportunity to celebrate and build on the many national and regional achievements.”

Read the full Research and Innovation Roadmap.

Learn more about digital innovation on the four-day Executive Education course Platform Strategy  at WBS London at The Shard.

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