Are companies still leaving Liverpool?

Dear readers — back in 2022, The Post published one of our most popular long-reads to date, entitled: Why are companies leaving Liverpool? The story painted a bleak picture: a series of high-profile businesses had departed the city region in quick succession, taking with them hundreds of well-paying jobs. What’s more, not enough companies were going the other way. Despite having the eight largest population of any UK city, Liverpool placed a meagre 17th for Foreign Direct Investment — a crucial metric measuring how much money comes into the city from abroad. As a consequence, the dozen-odd business insiders we spoke to worried that Liverpool was failing to keep pace with its traditional rivals. As one put it: “We get the Amazon warehouse jobs, Manchester gets the Amazon programmers”. 

Liverpool was in a different place back then. Owing to the reputational damage caused by the Caller Report and the arrest of Joe Anderson, many companies may have been put off from investing in a city with obvious political instability. Other problems compounded too: a lack of high quality office space meant that some of the best-paying firms had no choice but to look elsewhere, and young graduates were leaving Liverpool at concerning rates in search of better, more lucrative opportunities. 

Now, three years on from that investigation, we revisit the topic. Has tangible progress been made to create a better environment for budding businesses? 

That’s today’s Answers in The Post. But first, your Post briefing.

Your Post briefing

There are calls for Reform to withdraw their candidate for the upcoming Blundellsands by-election, after racist tweets surfaced. Irene J Davidson made a series of posts on X earlier this year, calling for the government to put “white English people first”, eradicate Islam, as well as “tattoo everyone arriving on small boats when they embark on our shores”. She has also regularly voiced her support online for Britain First, the far-right group created in 2011 by former members of the BNP. In response to the tweets surfacing, Sefton Green councillor Neil Doolin said he was “deeply appalled and disturbed”, adding that “there is absolutely no place in public life — or in our communities — for racism, hate speech, or the normalisation of extremist views”. He called on Reform to withdraw her as a candidate for the by-election on 19th June, and expel her from the party.

The gardens of Southport’s Town Hall will undergo a £10m renovation as a tribute to three girls killed in a knife attack in the town last year. Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice Aguiar, and Bebe King were all stabbed to death in an attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in July. Now, Sefton Council and Liverpool City Region Combined Authority have both provided £2.5m to create a new town square and community space, with the government allocating an additional £5m to the project. The girls’ shared love of dance, music and art have inspired plans for the gardens, which will act as a thank you to people of Southport for their support in the aftermath of the attack.

And the Tate has been given an extra £12m to help it reopen by 2027. The art gallery has been shut for over two years due to problems finding funding for its renovation, but the cash boost from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport — alongside donations from the Garfield Weston Foundation and the Ross Warburton Charitable Trust — will help the project get back on track. 

In today’s Answers in The Post, we’re revisiting our investigation into why companies choose to leave Liverpool. Has much changed?

The good — and the bad

Comings and goings are an inevitable part of any business ecosystem, but when we looked at this topic three years ago it was plainly clear the significant goings outweighed the comings. A series of high-profile firms had walked away from the city centre in quick succession: Castore, Redx, Biofortuna, and Ideal Modular Homes among them. Meanwhile, Liverpool ranked 17th in the United Kingdom for foreign investment, scoring just seven projects that year compared to Manchester, which got 45.

Three years on, let’s start with the positives. Since 2022, there have been a number of high profile investments that have put the city on the map — most notably from US IT company, Kyndryl. 

Back in February, Kyndryl announced they’d be opening a new technology hub in Liverpool, with up to 1,000 software engineering and AI-related jobs created over the next three years. It was great news — as the biggest IT infrastructure provider in the world, an investment from Kyndryl signalled the city was finally being taken seriously for international investment. BDO — the fifth largest accounting network globally — has also continued its expansion in Liverpool, now employing more than 700 staff from its bases in Tithebarn and Temple Street, making it one of the largest employers in the city centre. 

On a smaller scale, companies like Acorn Insurance have created hundreds of jobs, and the city region has seen more small and medium-sized businesses setting up shop here. In 2024, award-winning food manufacturer Protein Works moved into a 100,000 square foot campus in Liverpool, capable of scaling past £100m. And, international businesses like makeup brand Tatti Lashes and management firm Blueprintx have chosen to keep Liverpool as their base as they expand rapidly.

It is impossible to ignore, however, some big losses. Back in January, AstraZeneca pulled out of a £450m deal to build a new vaccine manufacturing hub in Speke, depriving the city of  hundreds of potential jobs that would have bolstered Liverpool’s growing reputation as a city for science and innovation. The deal would have been the biggest inward investment into the region since the creation of Liverpool ONE in 2008. Another painful loss came in the form of Sysgroup — a fast-growing digital company founded in Liverpool in 2006, that acquired other firms nationally before moving its HQ to Manchester last year. 

And how about that troublesome foreign investment statistic? Despite some wins for the city region, in 2024 Liverpool had crawled up just one place in the ranks for foreign investment — sitting at 16th place, behind Manchester and Birmingham. While the full report for 2025 is yet to be published, a Combined Authority spokesperson told us they have scored 30 projects in the past year, which would up our rankings considerably.

“I think if you look at some other cities, they’re punching well above Liverpool on this,” Nick Small, Liverpool Council’s cabinet member for growth and economy, says. “So there’s a lot more we can and should be doing”. Small references “strong existing relationships” with the US and Canada, as well as the University of Liverpool’s newly-opened Bangalore campus and the council’s recent maritime trade mission to China, but it’s worth noting that interest doesn’t always equal investment. The city has been doing trade missions to China for close to two decades, and is yet to result in any major inward investment. One property insider says the insistence on a relationship that doesn’t bear much fruit remains “puzzling”.