ONS Export Data Explored from 2016 to 2024

Analysis of ONS data through 2024 - covering financial services, legal and accounting activities, management consulting, and other business services

The United Kingdom's exports of professional services - comprising financial services, legal and accounting activities, management consulting, and the wider set of "other business services" (OBS) as defined by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) - remains a central pillar of its export strength. The latest ONS data released in January 2026 shows that UK OBS exports reached £181.4bn in 2024, up from £86.3bn in 2016, marking a rise of 110% over eight years. While we await the complete 2025 data, Q1-Q3 figures point to a full-year value of £189bn.

Evidence from this data, reinforced by TheCityUK's research on financial and related professional services, confirms that demand is both geographically concentrated in advanced economies and shaped by the UK's comparative advantage in high-value, knowledge-intensive activities.

Across all sub-types, accounting and tax consulting has grown the fastest (+198% since 2016), followed by advertising and market research (+161%) and business and management consulting (+147%). Legal services, while growing more slowly (+83%), remain a high-value anchor. Technical and trade-related services - the largest OBS sub-category in absolute terms at £83bn in 2024 - have grown 89% since 2016. A clear three-tier pattern of destination markets emerges.

The European Union - Foundational and Stable

The European Union continues to provide a foundational market characterised by scale, integration, and historical reliance. The EU accounted for 36.8% of UK OBS exports in 2024 (£66.7bn), up from 35.6% in 2016 - demonstrating resilience despite post-Brexit frictions. Ireland is the largest single EU destination at £15.2bn, followed by Germany (£11.5bn), France (£6.8bn), Belgium (£4.0bn) and Luxembourg (£3.4bn). This reflects dense cross-border corporate activity and sustained demand for legal, accounting and advisory services linked to investment, restructuring and regulatory compliance.

United States - Leader Overall and Among Non-EU Developed Economies

The US is now the UK's single largest OBS export market by a considerable margin, at £59.5bn in 2024 - 32.8% of the global total, up 169% since 2016. Professional and management consulting drives the bulk of this, at £35.1bn, including £25.9bn in business and management consulting alone. TheCityUK estimates the US accounts for roughly 35% of UK financial and related professional services exports overall, consistent with the depth of transatlantic commercial and legal alignment.

Beyond the US, a second tier of high-income markets has delivered striking results. Norway (+271%), Australia (+248%) and Canada (+237%) have each grown from mid-sized bases to become substantial markets, with Australia's particularly sharp 2024 jump (+34% year-on-year) meriting close attention. Singapore (+114%) and Japan (+15% year-on-year in 2024) continue on an upward path. These markets combine high demand with relatively predictable regulatory environments and strong professional services ecosystems.

Emerging and Growth Markets - Latin America, Middle East and Asia

Emerging markets offer the strongest growth rates but also the sharpest fluctuations. Brazil has grown 462% since 2016 to reach £1.7bn in 2024, with demand concentrated in financial services and infrastructure advisory. Saudi Arabia, at £5.2bn, is now a substantial market in its own right: the oil diversification agenda of Vision 2030 is generating sustained demand for management consulting and legal services.

India presents a more complicated picture. Exports have grown 145% since 2016 in aggregate, but fell 18% in 2024 alone - from £1.2bn to £989m. That single-year decline is large enough to raise a structural question, not just a blip, about the UK's positioning in what should be one of its fastest-growing professional services markets. However, with the recent UK-India Free Trade Agreement, there are positive signals for recovery. More broadly, rising demand across Asia and the Middle East - driven by economic growth, infrastructure investment, and deepening of the financial sector - is creating new opportunities for UK professional services firms.

Structural Shift in Market Composition

The country-share analysis reveals the most significant structural finding: despite growing in absolute terms, Switzerland has lost nearly 2 percentage points of share since 2016 (from 6.6% to 4.7%), reflecting slower growth relative to the rest of the UK's export base. Germany has also slipped marginally. Meanwhile, the US has gained 7.2 percentage points of OBS export share - a striking concentration of the UK's professional services export base around a single partner.

Nearly one in three pounds of UK OBS exports now goes to a single country. That concentration reflects genuine commercial depth and shared legal-commercial frameworks - but it also represents a meaningful strategic risk, particularly given the less predictable trade environment taking shape in 2026.

Future Outlook

The UK's professional services export base reflects broad-based growth, with the durability and dominance of the EU and the US confirmed - while newer markets in the Gulf, Australasia and Latin America are becoming meaningful in scale. The key questions going into 2025's final data are whether US concentration continues to deepen, whether India's 2024 decline reverses, and how UK firms are navigating the shifting geopolitical landscape in the Middle East - a region that generates significant consulting and legal revenues but where the operating environment is becoming harder to read.