Professional and Financial Services (PFS) is one of the nine sectors that will be showcased at this year’s Leicester Business Festival. The region’s biggest business festival will take place over two weeks between 24^th October and 4^th November and is expected to welcome thousands of people from across the nation.

The PFS sector spans a very wide range of professional businesses, from core financial and legal services, through to technical services such as architecture, and scientific research. The Leicestershire area has around 29,000 PFS jobs, with 6,800 of them in the City of Leicester alone.

Professional and Financial Services are a vital component of the UK economy, according to the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) with around 600,000 jobs due to be created in the sector by 2025 across the UK.  Currently, the PFS sector represents 15% of UK GDP, 14% of employment and 14% of exports. This is due not only to the sector’s direct contribution to output and employment, but also strategically in its contribution to growth in other sectors of the economy that it serves.

In many respects the sector underpins the UK economy and the Leicester Business Festival will provide the perfect opportunity to highlight their importance.

Scott Charlish, Divisional Director of Brewin Dolphin and sector lead for the Professional and Financial Services sector commented:”I am delighted to be associated with the Leicester Business Festival 2016. Recent events have made Leicester and Leicestershire a truly exciting place to do business. I firmly believe that the financial and professional services community are very well placed to play our part in the further development of the area which in my view has become one of the most exciting places to conduct business in the UK.”

Professional & Financial Services is just one of the nine sectors that are targeted for growth and that will be showcased as part of this year’s festival. The others being, Food & Drink Manufacturing, Textiles Manufacturing, Tourism & Hospitality, Sport & Health, Engineering & Advanced Manufacturing, Low Carbon, Distribution & Logistics, and Creative Industries.

As a by business for business event, the application process for this year’s festival is now up and running and a number of companies have already put themselves forward to host events.

One of the region’s top educational institutions De Montfort University have thrown their support behind the festival as headline sponsors. Also backing the festival as affiliate sponsors are Highcross Leicester, FSB, Aon, Lestercast, Qdos and the East Midlands Chamber of Commerce.

Leicester and Leicestershire is an area primed for even greater economic success and the Leicester Business Festival will make a major contribution towards encouraging this success and bringing together the business community in the spirit of collaboration.