Leeds is a city in west Yorkshire, England, with a population of around 770,800 people. The city is the United Kingdom's biggest area for commerce, finance and legal services outside of the city of London. Economic growth is forging ahead in the city at a high rate, and the city is enjoying unprecedented expansion of its commercial activities. The city is experiencing greater affluence to the general benefit of society. The facilities and amenities of the city have changed for the better and look likely to continue to do so. Regeneration of the built environment is changing the skyline for the better, with penthouse apartments springing up all round the city centre.

There are more that 400,000 people working for companies in Leeds. The city is the one of the biggest centres of financial activities in the United Kingdom, second only to London. The Bank of England has only one satellite office in the whole of the United Kingdom, and this one other office is located in Leeds. As a result of the high degree of finance activities in Leeds, it must come as no surprise that the finance sector is one of the main disciplines in which people work in this thriving metropolis. The specialist areas of finance in which people work in the city include insurance, banking and financial trading.

Another major sector in which people work in Leeds is the leisure sector which includes hotels, restaurants, night clubs, bars and casinos. Many of these establishments are patronised by people who work in the financial sector, as they do in other financial centres like London, Hong Kong, New York, Chicago, Frankfurt and Paris.

In tandem with this thriving leisure sector is the retail sector which has grown remarkably well in the city. Harvey Nichols has a hugely successful branch in the city, and many other world class prestige retailers are now represented in the metropolis, where the market for luxury goods continues to grow steadily. Leeds has now become the pre-eminent city for shopping in the whole of Yorkshire and the Humber region as well.

The media is another important area of commerce which is forging ahead in Leeds. Publishers of printed media such as books, magazines, journals and newspapers are thriving in the city. There are also active news organizations that provide top quality journalistic content for television, radio, print media and online media.

As mentioned above, online media activities are pre-eminent activities in the city. There are many digital agencies which produce websites, website applications and smartphone applications that run on iPhones, Blackberries, Android phones and Nokia handsets. Such agencies also help websites do well on the search engines such as Google and Yahoo, which enables businesses to gain more leads and online sales.

Many companies have call centres based in Leeds, so much so that call centres have become an important part of the business scene in the city. People across the United Kingdom are becoming increasingly familiar with hearing a Yorkshire accent when they call their bank, insurance company or stockbroker to conduct business or make an enquiry.