Pembury Partners in the UK: Manchester
We’ve successfully assisted a number of clients with finding household staff in and around Manchester recently, and have been seeing an increasing number of these roles becoming available in this area. Manchester is regularly seen at the top of the charts of the best places in the UK to live, and indigenous residents and recent converts alike will tell you (at length, given the chance) that it’s “better than London.” We thought it might be nice therefore to take a look at this Northern powerhouse of a city, and at what makes it such an attractive prospect.
Manchester’s restaurant scene is rich and varied. Like everywhere, Covid took its toll, but prior to that the city had one of the fastest-growing food and drink sectors in the country. It is rapidly returning to form and is an exciting place to eat, with just about every cuisine imaginable on offer. In 2019 Mana, run by Chef-Patron Simon Martin, formerly of Noma in Copenhagen, received a Michelin star – the first in the city since 1977.
The city is one of the best places for live music anywhere in the UK. This is not surprising given some of the bands that have originated here – The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Oasis, Joy Division and many more. There are large enough venues to attract global superstars, including Manchester Arena, which has the highest indoor seating capacity in the UK and the second highest in Europe, The Apollo and the Acadamies, and numerous smaller more intimate venues throughout the trendy Northern Quarter and across the city.
Home to two of the biggest football teams in the world – United and City, obviously – Manchester rightly claims to be the UK’s sporting capital. It’s not just football though, the Commonwealth Games were held here in 2002 which has left a legacy of first-rate sporting facilities such as Manchester Velodrome, Manchester Aquatics Centre and the Regional Athletics Arena; and not forgetting this is the location of one of England’s iconic cricket grounds at Old Trafford.
For those of us more interested in arts and culture than the roar of the crowd, there’s plenty on offer. The Lowry and HOME Arts Centre are established world-class venues, and work continues on The Factory, an £186 million arts venue due to open in 2023 which will be permanent home to the Manchester International Festival. There are numerous first-rate museums and galleries too, such as the Museum of Science and Industry, Oxford Road Art Gallery, the Manchester Museum, The Whitworth, and the National Football Museum.
If you’d rather just have a quiet pint, it’s refreshing to hear that the microbreweries continue to increase in number and diversity, putting their craft beers on the map to rival some of the large breweries still based here.
We could go on. Manchester is an exciting, diverse city and it’s easy to see why people want to live and work here. The countryside nearby is beautiful too – the rugged Peak District is a stone’s throw, as are the plains of Cheshire; and the city is accessible from anywhere with Manchester Airport being the UK’s third busiest.
Pembury Partners helps clients source the highest calibre of household professionals in the UK and abroad.
