The West Midlands section includes key facts, Top 25 companies ranked by turnover, transport statistics, political tables and regional contacts.
How the West was won – again
Go back not so very long ago when the West Midlands seemed to have rather lost its way.
Major politicians and business leaders were rowing openly about the direction of the region; major manufacturers like MG Rover and Peugeot were collapsing or pulling out. There was a feeling of general drift and of being at the mercy of external events.
The West Midlands, which had led the country in terms of urban regeneration for the best part of a decade, could only watch as rival regions seemed to effortlessly pass it in terms of prestige, investment and income.
What a difference a year or two makes. There is now an upsurge of confidence that the battle to reaffirm the West Midlands pre-eminence among the UK’s regions is growing. There’s a new and tangible feeling of optimism in the region: new buildings, new investment, new jobs, new hope.
For example a series of masterplans has laid out clearly the futures for urban centres like Birmingham, Stoke, Coventry and the Black Country. Huge regeneration projects in Wolverhampton, Walsall and West Bromwich are – finally – grinding into gear. The onstruction of exciting, iconic buildings is now almost taken for granted because of the rate at which they appear on the region’s skyline.
And the region is starting to free itself from the shackles of traditional low margin, widget-based manufacturing. Instead the West Midlands is starting to rediscover that sense of innovation and enterprise that made it the workshop of the world: the emphasis is now on making things with wit, style and technology – those things which add value – rather than mass producing at lowest cost.
It is not only manufacturing in which the region is making great strides. The professional services sector – lawyers, bankers, private equity experts, accountants and their ilk – is now second only to London in its size, its scope and the range of its offering; similarly creative industries like marketing, PR and design are larger than those in any other UK region. Logistics is booming.
Admittedly the West Midlands still has issues: levels of training, enterprise, educational achievement, graduate retention and innovation lag behind national averages.
The region also needs to radically revaluate its appeal to the wider world: despite having made huge steps the message of a remodelled West Midlands has yet to truly filter through to the rest of Britain. This is not just the result of businesses beyond the region not catching up with the huge changes across the West Midlands in recent years: the region’s various sectors, both individually and collectively, need to sell their achievements and abilities more enthusiastically and energetically.
And as regards transport, don’t go there, literally. The region’s motorways remain hideously choked – a major issue in a region promoting itself as a European logistic hub. And there is continuing uncertainty over major development plans like those for the extension of Birmingham International Airport’s runway and of New Street Station, the region’s main rail hub.
Bur these are arguably the pains of a region undergoing huge transformations, and waiting for government and centrally-funded projects to catch up on the progress that is being made elsewhere in the economy.
Yes, the roads and railways many be clogged, but that’s because of the number of people wanting to get to and get around the region. Success has never been a smooth ride.
Kurt Jacobs is editor of
Midlands Business Insider magazine