WIREDGOV

The Places for Growth programme has successfully relocated 18,283 civil service roles from London to locations across the United Kingdom, putting the government further ahead of schedule against its commitment to relocate 22,000 roles by 2027.

• Latest figures reveal that over 18,200 roles have been successfully relocated out of London under the Places for Growth programme.
• Leeds, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and Sheffield were the top five UK cities to receive the most roles
• Plans announced to invest £118m in a state-of-the-art UK Government Hub in Darlington, supporting the relocation of a further 1,450 government roles.

The Places for Growth programme has successfully relocated 18,283 civil service roles from London to locations across the United Kingdom, putting the government further ahead of schedule against its commitment to relocate 22,000 roles by 2027.

These latest relocation figures follow on from the Government’s recent decision to bring forward its original target of relocating 22,000 roles from 2030 to 2027, as it takes the long-term decisions to change this country for the better and deliver a Civil Service that is representative of the communities it serves.

The region benefiting the most from role relocation is the North West, followed by Yorkshire and the Humber, with 3,720 and 3,392 roles relocated since 2021, respectively. 

Leeds, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, and Sheffield are the five UK cities that have received the most roles under Places for Growth. Over 7,300 roles have been relocated to these cities collectively since 2021, with 826 alone relocated in the last quarter of 2023.

The relocation of roles is also helping deliver on the government’s commitment to levelling up and driving regional economic growth across the country; government modelling at the outset of the programme indicated Places for Growth could provide an economic boost of between £260m – £1.4bn in total across the UK. Latest relocation studies suggest a local economic benefit of £30 million per 1,000 roles relocated.

Places for Growth is also helping the civil service to become more representative of the entire United Kingdom. Since 2020, 3,224 roles have been relocated outside England including 95 Senior Civil Service roles. 1,935 civil services roles have been relocated to Scotland, 1,009 to Wales and 280 to Northern Ireland.

Minister for the Cabinet Office & Paymaster General, John Glen, recently said:

Our plans to move more government roles outside of London continue to progress at a pace; month by month, we are seeing the transformation of our civil service into an organisation that better reflects the perspectives of people from across the United Kingdom.

We also remain focused on our commitment to ensure half of all UK-based senior civil servants based outside of London by 2030 — creating opportunities for talent from all corners of the country to rise to the highest levels of the civil service.

In Darlington, the government recently announced that a planning application had been submitted to build a state-of-the-art, four-storey UK Government hub on Brunswick Street. Construction of the new government offices is expected to begin later this year and be completed in early 2027. 

The new hub will increase the total number of Darlington-based civil servants working to over 2,300, 1,450 of whom will be located in the Brunswick Street hub.

During his visit to meet with senior officials in Darlington, Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office, Alex Burghart, recently said: 

Brunswick Street, situated right in the heart of Darlington, will soon be home to a critical government hub, and as the government footprint in North England continues to grow, we will create further opportunities for people from across the country to work in the civil service.