Editor's comment: The figures below should give pause to policymakers, such as the present UK government, in any attempt to hamper the UK financial services industry through measures such as further bank levies, transaction taxes, or hasty regulation. While it is necessary for a mature economy such as the UK to have balanced sources of growth, the importance of finance in the UK cannot be underestimated. 

Financial services in the UK accounted for 9.6 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2011, a figure that has oscillated in the wake of the 2008 debt crisis but still highlights the importance of this sector, according to TheCityUK, a group representing the industry.

At a time when there have been calls for policymakers to make the UK less reliant on financial services, figures show that the 2011 figure for their share of GDP – the latest year for which numbers are available – rose from 9.4 per cent in 2010 but down from a high of 10.4 per cent in 2009. In 2000, financial services accounted for only 5.3 per cent of GDP, reflecting the relative fall in significance of sectors such as manufacturing, the report said.

When professional services such as law and accounting are thrown into the mix, financial and professional services accounted for 14.5 per cent of UK GDP in 2011.

The report did not single out wealth management as a sector, the figures are suggestive that this part of the financial industry remains important to the UK.

Financial services are larger as a share of GDP in the UK than they are n countries such as the US (8.4 per cent) and Japan, France and Germany, where the share is less than 5 per cent.

The UK employed a total of 2.06 million people in financial and professional services roles in 2011, with London and the southeast accounting for 663,600 of the jobs.