The Clustering of Financial Services in London*

Figure 1: The London Financial Services Cluster

Data on financial services clustering in London were collected via a postal
questionnaire survey and via an in-depth face-to-face interview survey. Both survey
designs were informed by relevant theory (see Appendix 1 for an overview). For the
questionnaire survey, 1,500 questionnaires were posted. The sample was selected using a
stratified method. 100% of the largest 350 firms were selected. These were identified
primarily from a database supplied by the specialist information provider Market
Locations. The remaining 1,150 firms were drawn at random from the rest of the Market
Locations database (using a random number generator). The original mailing went out in
April 2002 with a follow-up in June 2002. A third mailing was considered but rejected in
view of the good response rate to the first two mailings. A total of 310 usable
questionnaires were returned, a response rate of just over 20%.

The postal questionnaire data are presented in Appendix 2. In almost all cases,
respondents were asked to rank the importance of a factor from 1 (not important) to 5 (very

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