Glasgow has matured as a global investment proposition and attracts investment from a large and diverse international investor base.
The city has a strong and diversified economy underpinned by its globally recognised transformation into a growing and emerging UK tech centre.
4th
in the UK for Foreign Direct Investment in 2022
(outside of London)
Over £19bn
in capital investment attracted since 2011
New Companies
Planet DDS
Californian dental software company Planet DDS chose to locate its technology development and support centre in Glasgow with a £10 million software investment, creating 75 new high quality jobs.
The provider of cloud-enabled dental software serves more than 10,000 practices in North America, with around 60,000 users. The company’s data management applications are specifically designed to let dental practices transition to a completely digital approach.
Scottish Development International (SDI) worked closely with Invest Glasgow and Team Scotland partners to build a strong and long-term relationship with Planet DDS.
Angelina Hendricks, chief technology officer at Planet DDS, said: “We chose Glasgow based on the technical expertise of the people as well as the passion for innovation we see in the community. We are excited about expanding our Glasgow team in support of our company’s growth objectives and starting to contribute to the local technology community.”
Invisors
Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Invisors, a Workday partner, chose Glasgow as the preferred location for its first European office after working closely with local partner organisations including Invest Glasgow, Scottish Development International and Skills Development Scotland. Invisors recently received partnership status from Workday to deliver Workday deployments in the UK and Ireland. Half of the 20 staff already recruited by Invisors are based in Glasgow.
Matt Smith, EMEA Operations Lead said: "I'm based in the Glasgow area, so we are pleased that our due diligence indicated that Glasgow would be a strong location for our plans. We have seen a lot of value so far in the local talent we have attracted and the support we have received from local partners.
Company Expansions
Barclays Bank
Barclays opted for Glasgow as the prime location for its new Northern European Hub to house its technology, functions and operations teams.
The move to a new purpose-built campus, part of Barclay’s global strategy to create flagship technology and banking facilities, has seen the bank double the size of its workforce in Scotland to around 5,000 people, and makes Barclays one of Glasgow’s largest employers.
JP Morgan Chase & Co
US giant, JP Morgan Chase & Co selected Glasgow as the host city for its European Technology Centre.
Since setting up in Glasgow in 1999, the company’s workforce has increased exponentially from 50 to 2,000 technology specialists leading on software development as well as data science and cloud engineering services, key technological pillars of the company’s global operations. To accommodate further expansion in Glasgow, the company will locate all 2,000 city employees into a new 270,000 sq ft Grade A purpose-built office building in the centre of Glasgow with increased capacity to accommodate 700 additional staff.
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley initially set up in Glasgow in 2000 with a small team of six locally recruited employees to manage a specific settlements function from London.
Such was the success of this team, another locally recruited small team joined them very soon after to manage a wealth management function. Today, Morgan Stanley’s city centre operation is its second largest operation in Europe and fifth largest globally, having expanded to 2,200 employees working across a range of divisions including Finance and Technology Data and Operations and Funding. In 2018 Morgan Stanley strengthened its long-term partnership with Glasgow by relocating all company employees in Scotland into a new 155,000 sq ft Grade A purpose-built office building.
"We looked at Scotland as a key supply for talent first and foremost, and chose Glasgow as a great fit for Morgan Stanley. Much of that was to do with the infrastructure, the number of universities we have here, and the relative cost to the organisation in aspects like real estate."
John McGrory, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley
