Did the Manchester bet pay off?

By Reggi, Founder of Noveleo AI · Published 2 August 2026 · Updated 2 August 2026 · 7 min read

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@type": "BlogPosting",
      "headline": "Manchester AI companies: what OakNorth's 2019 bet proves in 2026",
      "description": "OakNorth called Manchester 'the place to be' in 2019. Seven years on, we test that claim with 2026 numbers and what it means for Manchester AI companies.",
      "image": "https://noveleo.ai/images/manchester-ai-companies-skyline.webp",
      "datePublished": "2026-08-02",
      "dateModified": "2026-08-02",
      "mainEntityOfPage": {
        "@type": "WebPage",
        "@id": "https://noveleo.ai/blog/manchester-ai-companies-oaknorth-lessons"
      },
      "author": {
        "@type": "Person",
        "name": "Reggi [SURNAME]",
        "url": "https://noveleo.ai/about",
        "jobTitle": "Founder, Noveleo AI",
        "sameAs": ["ADD-LINKEDIN-URL"],
        "knowsAbout": ["AI automation", "UK retail operations", "small business systems"]
      },
      "publisher": {
        "@type": "Organization",
        "name": "Noveleo AI",
        "logo": {
          "@type": "ImageObject",
          "url": "https://noveleo.ai/images/logo.webp"
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "FAQPage",
      "mainEntity": [
        {
          "@type": "Question",
          "name": "Is Manchester a good place to start an AI company?",
          "acceptedAnswer": {
            "@type": "Answer",
            "text": "Yes. Greater Manchester supports more than 82,000 digital roles across 10,000-plus tech businesses, with graduate pipelines from four universities and operating costs well below London. The main trade-off is fundraising: most UK venture capital is still deployed from London, so expect regular travel if you're raising."
          }
        },
        {
          "@type": "Question",
          "name": "What did the Manchester Evening News say about OakNorth?",
          "acceptedAnswer": {
            "@type": "Answer",
            "text": "In a 6 June 2019 article, the MEN reported OakNorth COO Amir Nooriala explaining why the bank ran a Manchester office from day one: university talent, bank-trained staff and airport connectivity. At the time, OakNorth had lent £3bn and made £33.9m pre-tax profit."
          }
        },
        {
          "@type": "Question",
          "name": "Did OakNorth's Manchester strategy work?",
          "acceptedAnswer": {
            "@type": "Answer",
            "text": "On the numbers, yes. OakNorth reported £223m pre-tax profit for 2025, with cumulative lending past £12.5bn and a US arm now writing 40% of new lending. Its two-city Manchester and London model survived seven years of rapid growth."
          }
        },
        {
          "@type": "Question",
          "name": "Can a small business use AI automation without a tech team?",
          "acceptedAnswer": {
            "@type": "Answer",
            "text": "Yes, if you start narrow. Daily sales reporting, staff rotas and customer follow-ups are the usual first wins. Budget time for data cleaning before anything clever. In our shops, mismatched staff names in the till system had to be fixed before any report could be trusted."
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Key takeaways

• OakNorth told the Manchester Evening News in June 2019 that Manchester “ticked all the boxes”. By its 2025 results, pre-tax profit had grown from £33.9m to £223m.
• Greater Manchester now hosts roughly 250 fintech firms and 82,000+ digital roles, the largest UK tech cluster outside London.
• The clustering logic from that interview (“you don’t want to be the only fintech in a city”) now applies word for word to Manchester AI companies.
• The same playbook works for non-tech SMEs: automate the repetitive work, and expect your first month to be data cleaning.

Contents: Why Manchester · Did it pay off · AI in 2026 · The SME playbook · FAQ

If you’re choosing where to build an AI company in the UK, Manchester is the strongest answer outside London. That’s not a hunch. On 6 June 2019, the Manchester Evening News published an interview with Amir Nooriala, then chief operating officer of OakNorth, under the headline “Europe’s fastest growing fintech firm on why Manchester is the place to be”. Seven years on, we can mark every claim in that piece against what actually happened. Most held up. One prediction missed by years, and it’s the most interesting one.

I keep coming back to that article. I run retail sites at Manchester’s Trafford Centre and at Westfield London, and I founded Noveleo AI to sell the automation we built for our own shops to other UK SMEs. The route fintech took through this city is the playbook we followed.

Why did OakNorth choose Manchester in 2019?

OakNorth opened a Manchester office from day one, and its COO gave the Manchester Evening News three reasons: graduate talent from four universities, experienced staff trained up by the big banks, and direct flights from Manchester Airport to the firm’s bases in India, New York and Singapore. “All the boxes were ticked,” Nooriala said.

This was not a satellite office for show. The bank’s head of IT infrastructure sat in Manchester alongside support, risk and client-facing teams. The week before the interview, OakNorth had announced four senior lending hires across Manchester, the Midlands and the South West.

The cost argument was blunt too. Tim Newns, then CEO of MIDAS (Greater Manchester’s inward investment agency), told the same UK FinTech Week event that a growing e-commerce company could cut costs by 40% by locating in Manchester rather than London. Treat that figure as a sales pitch rather than an audited number. But directionally, nobody who has rented space in both cities would argue.

Did the Manchester bet pay off?

Yes, on the numbers. When the MEN piece ran, OakNorth had lent £3bn since its 2015 launch and reported £33.9m pre-tax profit for 2018. By its 2025 results, pre-tax profit had reached £223m, cumulative lending had passed £12.5bn, and coverage of those results described it as a Manchester and London-based bank.

The prediction that missed: Nooriala said that when a Manchester fintech exited or floated there would be “a gold rush in the city”, and reckoned it was “probably another year away”. It took far longer than a year. But look at where the sector sits now. FinTech North counts nearly 250 active firms employing around 10,000 people and contributing more than £1bn to the economy, alongside offices for Adyen, Klarna and OakNorth itself.

Wrong on timing, right on direction. Founders should find that reassuring: the people closest to a trend usually overestimate its speed and underestimate its size.

Is Manchester a good place to build an AI company in 2026?

Yes. The case rests on the same two things fintech proved: deep talent at lower cost than London, inside a cluster big enough that you’re never the only one. Greater Manchester’s digital tech sector now supports more than 82,000 digital roles across 10,000-plus tech businesses, generating around £5bn in annual GVA, according to Manchester Digital.

Nooriala’s most quotable line was about clustering: “you don’t want to be the only fintech in a city.” Swap “fintech” for “AI company” and it reads like it was written for 2026. Manchester Digital now ranks the city among the UK’s most AI-ready, and the same graduate pipeline that fed OakNorth’s risk and infrastructure teams feeds machine learning teams today.

Two caveats, because hedge-free cheerleading helps nobody. First, London still takes most of the UK’s venture money. If you’re raising a large round, you’ll spend time on trains to Euston whatever your registered address says. Second, the 2019 event was hosted by MIDAS, an agency whose whole job is selling Manchester to investors. Boosterism was part of the package. What makes the article worth citing seven years later is not the pitch. It’s that the scorecard since then backs the pitch up.

FAQ

Is Manchester a good place to start an AI company?

Yes. Greater Manchester supports more than 82,000 digital roles across 10,000-plus tech businesses, with graduate pipelines from four universities and operating costs well below London. The main trade-off is fundraising: most UK venture capital is still deployed from London, so expect regular travel if you’re raising.

What did the Manchester Evening News say about OakNorth?

In a 6 June 2019 article, the MEN reported OakNorth COO Amir Nooriala explaining why the bank ran a Manchester office from day one: university talent, bank-trained staff and airport connectivity. At the time, OakNorth had lent £3bn and made £33.9m pre-tax profit.

Did OakNorth’s Manchester strategy work?

On the numbers, yes. OakNorth reported £223m pre-tax profit for 2025, with cumulative lending past £12.5bn and a US arm now writing 40% of new lending. Its two-city Manchester and London model survived seven years of rapid growth.

Can a small business use AI automation without a tech team?

Yes, if you start narrow. Daily sales reporting, staff rotas and customer follow-ups are the usual first wins. Budget time for data cleaning before anything clever. In our shops, mismatched staff names in the till system had to be fixed before any report could be trusted.

About the author

Reggi is the founder of Noveleo AI, which builds AI automation for UK SMEs: daily reporting, staff scheduling and the data plumbing underneath. LinkedIn

Source article: “Europe’s fastest growing fintech firm on why Manchester is the place to be”, Shelina Begum, Manchester Evening News, 6 June 2019.