Scottish Cities Alliance

14/02/24, FDI Intelligence, by Cllr Cammy Day, Leader of The City of Edinburgh Council

A city can only be as successful as those who live in it. In Edinburgh, it’s our ambition to give every resident the best start in life and the support they need to live well. And what we are finding is that this educated and talented workforce also makes Edinburgh an attractive proposition for prospective investors.

As part of a country where a record-high number of young people are in education, training or employment, Edinburgh seeks to attract, develop and retain its workforce. Such ambition was demonstrated during January’s Scottish Cities Week in London, where leaders and senior officers of partner cities, plus investors and developers, gathered to showcase the investability of Scotland’s cities.

However, this ambition does not come without challenges. Historically, Scotland has been suffering from the brain drain of young professionals leaving the country and heading south for work. Moreover, Scotland’s Census shows the country’s plummeting birth rate with its population growing at the lowest rate – and ageing at the fastest rate – of any nation in the UK.

For a city to become a hub of innovation, entrepreneurship and business growth, talent is the biggest asset. That talent may look elsewhere without the right pay, work security and quality of life, especially against the backdrop of a cost-of-living crisis and shortage of affordable housing.

Edinburgh is squaring up on these issues by partnering with a range of stakeholders to create access to meaningful work, fair wages and a great quality of life. One example is The Edinburgh Guarantee, providing people of all ages and backgrounds looking for employment, training or education a no-wrong-door approach, which provides a single gateway to community services and government programmes. Another example is the Fair Work Charter that Edinburgh is developing, which outlines what constitutes fair work in the city, particularly around minimum standards of pay and working conditions in the gig economy, to champion the true value of people’s jobs. We’re also proud that over the past decade more than 700 Edinburgh businesses have made the voluntary commitment to pay the real living wage (higher than the national living wage), leading to 12,000 workers receiving a direct, guaranteed uplift in pay. The good news is that our approach is working. Edinburgh has higher productivity rates and average earnings than anywhere in the UK outside of London. According to Skills Development Scotland, Edinburgh accounted for the largest share of Scotland’s total employment (14.2%) in 2022. We are also home to leading universities and the biggest cultural festival on the planet, Edinburgh Fringe. However, there is still room for improvement.

The success of Edinburgh’s tourism industry – selling around £1.3bn worth of services and supporting 30,000 related jobs – has led to the launch of FUSE, a leading retail and hospitality academy which connects people across Edinburgh to training courses, accredited qualifications, employers, and jobs in retail and hospitality.

The development of Edinburgh Airport — part of Scotland’s new, green freeports — and the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region deal will together generate tens of thousands of roles and significant skills improvements. The city has also set the target of becoming a net zero city by 2030, and established the Net Zero Edinburgh Partnership Board to promote its climate strategy and support collaborative development.

The city’s efforts to foster its workforce are bearing fruit, as more companies from around the world are choosing to start ventures in Scotland’s capital. Investors such as Virgin Hotels are already helping the city breathe new life into important buildings and make them fit for the future, while the new St James Quarter investment has acted as an anchor for footfall and new retail. In fact, the city centre welcomed a 6.4% increase in footfall last December compared to the previous year — the only city in Scotland to register an increase.

Our plans for Edinburgh are ambitious, but realisable if we work together. With partnerships spreading across public and private sectors, including the Scottish Cities Alliance – a unique collaboration between Scotland’s eight cities – we are committed to validating Edinburgh’s position as a place where people want to live and work, and the very destination for companies looking for talented pool of employees for years to come.