(Commonwealth_Europe) Two of Wall Street’s biggest banks made major announcements about expanding in the UK, only hours after they escaped a tax increase in Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget. JP Morgan revealed plans for a huge new headquarters in Canary Wharf, a 3 million sq ft tower that will eventually house more than half of its 23,000 UK employees. Expected to cost around £3bn, the project represents one of the most significant corporate developments London has seen in years.
Goldman Sachs made a separate announcement, saying it would expand its Birmingham office and hire 500 new staff, more than doubling its workforce in the city. Both announcements arrived at a politically sensitive moment. Banks had spent months lobbying against a potential rise in their levy, warning that higher taxes could force them to cut back on lending and undermine the government’s own efforts to boost economic growth through regulatory reforms.
Reports emerged earlier in the week that the Treasury had privately encouraged banks to express public support for the budget in exchange for being spared a tax hike. Despite the raised eyebrows, Reeves continued to celebrate the announcements. In a press release tied to JP Morgan’s new tower, she said she was “thrilled” the bank chose London for such a major investment, calling it a “multibillion-pound vote of confidence in the UK economy.”
Pressed on BBC Radio’s Today program about whether the banks’ investment decisions were influenced by the absence of new taxes, Reeves insisted the budget was already proving its impact. She argued that companies had a world of options when deciding where to invest and that the UK was being chosen because they liked what they heard the day before.
JP Morgan, however, pushed back on the idea that the timing was political. A person familiar with the bank’s plans said the announcement had been in the works for months and reflected a long-term strategic decision rather than any reaction to a single budget. With US markets closed for Thanksgiving, the bank felt it was a quieter moment to go public with the news.
JP Morgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, framed the move as a reaffirmation of the bank’s long-standing commitment to the UK. He highlighted London’s thousand-year history as a global financial hub and said keeping the city vibrant was critical to the wider UK economy. He added that the government’s focus on economic growth played a key role in the bank’s decision.
When factoring in building costs, supplier spending, and related employment, the bank estimates that the project could generate nearly £10bn of economic activity nationwide. The tower’s final height has not yet been revealed, but the build is expected to take around six years, with the renowned British architecture firm Foster + Partners leading the design. The bank only recently unveiled its new global headquarters in New York, also designed by the same firm, and last month announced a £350m investment in expanding its Bournemouth campus.
The expansion of Goldman Sachs in Birmingham aligns with the bank’s broader focus on technology and artificial intelligence. A spokesperson said the bank was ramping up financing for what it sees as crucial areas of the future economy, including AI and digital infrastructure, with several billion pounds already earmarked for investment. Together, the announcements signal that both US giants see long-term opportunity in the UK, even as the timing sparks debate about the government’s relationship with the financial sector.
