The Edinburgh Chamber is set to establish an economic leadership forum aimed at accelerating “good growth” in the city’s and region’s economy, creating jobs and opportunities for all. This initiative was one of the main outcomes of the half-day conference titled “Call to Action for Edinburgh’s Economic Future,” held at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre yesterday. The event brought together business leaders, political decision-makers, influencers, and leaders from the cultural and educational sectors to unite behind a common vision for the city’s future.

Chamber Chief Executive Liz McAreavey introduced the conference by saying that the way to tackle major social issues affecting the city, such as poverty, was through economic growth to “create the kind of city we aspire to be” with all citizens sharing in that success.

Vital to that process would be ensuring that stakeholders “get the story out” about the strength of the city’s investible economic assets, such as its world leading data, robotics and AI.

The conference heard that tangible progress could be achieved as early as Spring next year, when the UK Budget will look at funding economic growth in line with the Government’s newly published Green Paper ‘Invest 2035: The UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy” which is currently out for consultation. The Call for Action will help the city provide strong case studies for further investment for Scotland’s Capital.

In addition, she added that within the coming months the Leadership Group should create a “scorecard” to allow progress to be measured, and action plans should be formulated for both 1-2 years, and 3-5 years.

Several panels explored the event main theme of Driving Growth, featuring leaders from the city’s creative, health, financial services, technology and green energy sectors, colleges and universities, innovators and funders, as well as City of Edinburgh Council Leader Cammy Day, Scottish Government Minister for Employment and Investment, Tom Arthur MSP and Daniel Johnson MSP, Labour’s spokesperson on the Economy, Business and Fair Work in Scotland.

Some of the key points to emerge were:

The UK Government has identified eight priority areas for public investment, and Edinburgh is already leading in five of these but offers further significant growth potential – financial services and fintech, creative industries, technology and data, health, and green energy.

Conference panellist Francesca Hegyi, Chief Executive at Edinburgh International Festival, outlined the potential scale of Edinburgh’s ability to deliver economic growth that brings wider benefit to the region, Scotland and the UK. In her role as deputy chair of the UK Government’s Creative Industries Council, she has already begun working on growth plans for the sector, which employs more people in Scotland (160,000), than financial services and told the conference: “We are talking about growing the contribution of the creative sector by £50 billion by 2030. I hope to see £5 billion of that in Scotland and £2 billion of that Scottish growth here in Edinburgh.”

Julie Jacko, Dean of Innovation & Engagement in the University of Edinburgh’s College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, and Interim Director of the Usher Institute, said Edinburgh’s strengths in health technology and data, along with AI and robotics, meant the city was well-placed to utilise its world-class ecosystems across the health sector to help lead global innovation but that “major upskilling” was required in the city workforce to fully realise that potential.

The skills balance and pipeline is essential to progress, and shorter, more relevant training and qualifications are needed to keep pace with business needs. Edinburgh College Principal Audrey Cumberford said there was no doubt businesses were looking less at long-term qualifications and more at shorter, faster delivery of upskilling training for workers – but stressed that the current funding model – geared to formal qualifications gained over several years – made that more difficult to deliver. Successes had been gained, for example in green energy and in healthcare, when organisations collaborated closely with the college in the co-design and delivery of tailor-made courses.

The city’s strong start-up business ecosystem was identified as another positive virtue, for example in the technology sector, but among the barriers to business growth identified were the lack of scalable space, particularly R&D space, and the difficulty in accessing the more advanced, higher levels of patient scale-up finance required for capital intensive sectors such as biotech.

The conference also highlighted that while the five identified sectors will receive priority for UK Government funding, they are not the only focus for the city’s future economic planning. Other major sectors, particularly the thriving visitor economy, remain crucial. Gordon Robertson, Chief Communications and Sustainability Officer, noted that Edinburgh International Airport has seen significant growth in new routes, making it the UK airport with the highest level of international arrivals outside London, surpassing larger airports like Manchester.

Across all sectors, confidence and consistent story-telling will be vital. Edinburgh is a successful city by any measure, but all speakers agreed that better and more positive advocacy was needed to promote the many strengths of the Capital.

Daniel Johnson MSP said that part of the problem was that there was a feeling in central government that Edinburgh’s success meant it did not need support. “There is a view that Edinburgh is doing great, so we do not need to help it. We need to flip that thinking. Our challenge is not to hold Edinburgh back.”

A strong case was made by the policy-makers for “regional leadership,” which would necessitate increased powers at city region level, and discussions are already underway. This could facilitate a more coherent approach to infrastructure planning and investment, for example. City of Edinburgh Council leader Cammy Day said he believed increased powers at a regional level were essential to allow coherent solutions for city regions as economic drivers. He cited as an example the potential to expand Edinburgh’s tram network, into the Lothians and possibly Fife. “As an example, 85% of the working population of East Lothian travels into Edinburgh. We need to expand our transport infrastructure more into the city region.”

Chamber Chief Executive Liz McAreavey told the conference it was important that the scale of the city’s ambition was clearly set out uniting “ stakeholders across the city under a common ambition of where Edinburgh could be, or indeed wants to be in 10 – 20 years’ time, building on the excellent ecosystems and sectors and their individual strategies for growth that we are fortunate to have in Edinburgh” and then telling that unified story better to show that Edinburgh is a compelling investment proposition.

Work on the Call to Action for Edinburgh’s future will continue, focusing initially on key actions identified at the conference. These include establishing an Economic Leadership Forum, developing a scorecard to measure and monitor progress, and initiating an engagement plan with key stakeholders and all levels of government.