The ‘City of Expertise’ campaign, which was launched this week, highlights the combined skills of the cluster of professional services firms working in St Albans District and the area as a centre of professional services expertise on the local, regional and national stage.

St Albans is home to around 80 Chartered Accountancy firms, 50 legal firms and many firms of chartered surveyors. It is also located in one of the top 10 areas for employment in professional services occupations in England.*

The idea to bring local firms together to put the spotlight on the expertise and knowledge in St Albans came out of the Council’s economic development work.

The Council’s Leader Cllr Julian Daly, who is a board member of Hertfordshire’s Local Enterprise Partnership, has led this initiative. He commented: “St Albans has long been a service hub with its historic market and its important transport links. This gives us a legacy of businesses with top quality accounting, financial, legal, surveying and related skills. St Albans is in the top 10 areas for employment in professional occupations in England and has the expertise and knowledge to rival top London firms.”

The prosperity of St Albans was also demonstrated by its sixth place ranking in Lambert Smith Hampton’s latest ‘UK Vitality Index’, which assesses the UK’s largest towns and cities outside London to provide a health check of their local economies and identify which are most robust, are best positioned to support growth and will provide the greatest opportunities for businesses to expand. It ranked particularly highly when measured in terms of its affluence, which looks at a combination of average house prices, average weekly pay and socio-economic demographic data.

Nigel Palmer, Head of Office – St Albans, at Lambert Smith Hampton added: “I am delighted that Lambert Smith Hampton is supporting this campaign. St Albans is a popular location for businesses as demonstrated by the increasing demand for commercial property we are seeing in and around the city.”

The 18 professional services firms that are members of the group are: Aitchison Raffety, AON, Barclays, Clydesdale Bank, Debenhams Ottaway, Deloitte, Grant Thornton, Handelsbanken, Kingston Smith, Lambert Smith Hampton, Mercer & Hole, Rayden Solicitors, Rayner Essex, Rumball Sedgwick, SA Law, Sherrards Solicitors, Taylor Walton and WMT.

To find out more, visit the ‘City of Expertise’ website at www.cityofexpertise.com.

* 2011 census