Lesson video

Hello, my name is Chloe and I'm a geography field studies tutor.

This lesson is called "The post-industrial economy" and it forms part of the "Economic futures in the UK" unit of work.

In this lesson, we're going to be looking at what the post-industrial economy actually is and how it has brought opportunities and challenges to the UK.

So let's begin.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to describe the features of a post-industrial economy.

There are some keywords for us to review first of all.

The term post-industrial.

This is an economic phase where employment in manufacturing is replaced by employment in services and knowledge economies.

Financial services is a branch of industry that manages money and wealth, such as banking, insurance, fund management, and taxation.

Disposable income is money that's left over after someone has paid their essentials, such as food, bills, and housing.

And a science park is an area of land dedicated to businesses specialising in science and technology.

There are three parts in this lesson, it's gonna cover three different questions.

First of all, how has IT created a post-industrial economy? How have service and finance industries changed over time? And how have science and research changed the economy? Let's begin with that first one about IT and how it's created a post-industrial economy.

The term post-industrial describes an economy where the majority of employment opportunities are found in the tertiary and quaternary sectors.

The tertiary sector is the service industries.

It covers professions such as teachers, doctors, and retail and hospitality workers.

The quaternary sector is the most rapidly growing in the UK at present.

It covers employment opportunities in science, research and development, information and communication technology, and digital services.

Now, if you combine those two sectors together, the tertiary and the quaternary sectors, they account for 81% of the UK employment in 2022, so very much the majority of people are employed in either the tertiary or quaternary sector.

One issue with the term post-industrial is that it implies that tertiary and quaternary employees do not work in industry.

Post-industrial simply refers to the period following high levels of manufacturing in the UK.

Tertiary and quaternary workers still work in industry as their work has an economic value, even if it does not actually deal in tangible goods like manufacturing.

As Jacob says here, "I guess you could say that quaternary workers manufacture knowledge and they trade in understanding." They're not physical goods, but they certainly are important to the UK industry.

So, true or false? Quaternary sector workers do not work in industry.

Pause the video and have a think and then come back to me with the right answer.

So hopefully you worked out that it was false, but why is it a false statement? So, though quaternary employees are not dealing with tangible goods, they operate in places of work that aid the development of other industries.

It could be said that they trade in knowledge and understanding.

A key element of the post-industrial economy is the rapid spread of information technology, or IT.

In 2024, 93% of the UK had 4G mobile phone coverage from at least one provider, and 94% of people owned a smartphone.

In 2023, 97% of UK homes and businesses had super fast broadband internet coverage.

In 2024, 83% of the UK population were active on at least one social media platform.

And we can see that artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming part of people's personal and professional lives.

Developments in IT have created a number of advantages for UK industries.

Electronic communication means that businesses can trade, operate and market themselves easily across the world without having to have face-to-face interactions with employees or customers.

You could say that the lesson that you are listening to right now is a good example of that.

UK companies can potentially utilise the talents of a global workforce rather than be confined to just the population of the UK.

Through social media and online advertising, UK companies can market their products and services to new customers as well as sell goods through online retail sites.

IT has also allowed for more accurate and efficient modelling of business practises, such as by using AI to predict sales patterns.

This can save companies money, reduce the size of the workforce, and be more time efficient.

IT also allows information sharing through online platforms. This helps companies utilise cutting-edge research and it is good for employees who wish to upskill.

As Sofia says here, "The internet, social media, and AI are a huge part of my life now.

Imagine what it will be like when I start working." Yes, the rise of IT is so rapid, you can't help but wonder what it's gonna be like in 5, 10, 15 years time.

So, complete the sentences with the missing words.

We've got three words to find here.

Have a look through the paragraph, pause the video, and then come back to me.

Right, let's have a look at your answers.

Companies may use artificial intelligence, or AI, to model business practises such as predicting sales patterns.

This can make businesses more efficient and with this, more profitable.

It can also save companies money as AI may be able to do work previously done by employees.

Our first practise task.

Read Jun's opinion about the growth of IT in the post-industrial economy.

Write a counterargument for Sam to make to Jun's points, highlighting how IT can be a benefit to companies.

Let's look at what Jun says, first of all.

He says, "The development of IT in workspaces means that people now have to have a high level of IT skills just to do a straightforward role.

As software becomes rapidly more complex, employees will have to continually retrain to know how to do their jobs, and that's if AI hasn't taken their job from them." So Jun feels quite strongly perhaps against the use of IT in workplaces.

Can you write a counterargument for Sam to use which talks about all the benefits that IT can bring to companies? Pause the video, have another read of what Jun says, and then form your argument.

Okay, let's look at the kind of thing that you could have said.

Companies can be more efficient and have a wider global reach by using IT.

They can connect to the most skilled people from other countries and use them, along with AI, to train employees.

They can also use IT to market their goods and services to a much bigger number of customers, which will potentially increase their profits.

Now hopefully you've got some of those points, if not all of them, but of course you will have written it in your own style, well done.

Let's move on to the second part of today's lesson, how have service and finance industries changed? With the rise of more stable employment in the early 1900s, the population of the UK began to turn towards banks and financial services to help them manage their money.

In the first decade of the 1900s, most UK banks were very local, each having an average of five branches that were geographically close to each other.

These served the needs of their communities and their managers were well-known locally.

There was no such thing as a national or international bank then.

The First World War brought enormous economic pressure to UK families and most had much lower levels of disposable income.

To remain profitable, many UK banks started to merge together.

This practise continued until the number of banks had dropped significantly and each bank had hundreds of branches across the UK.

By 1918, five banks controlled 2/3 of the UK's financial services businesses.

So while the number of branches had increased, what we're talking about is the number of overall banks that controlled those branches had significantly decreased because they'd all merged together.

Let's check our understanding there.

Which of these statements best describes the state of financial services in the early 1900s? A, banks tended to have a small number of branches and operate locally.

People had low levels of disposable income, so banks closed down.

Or people did not trust banks so tended to keep cash in their homes and not in banks at all.

Have a think, pause the video, and then come back to me.

Right, let's see what answer you went for.

Well done if you recognised that it was option A.

Yes, banks tended to have a small number of branches and they operated locally.

After that, of course, there was great changes, but in the early 1900s, that's how things tended to happen.

In the 21st century, bank mergers continued, though by now this was happening internationally.

So not just in the UK, we're now looking at banks merging all over the world.

This has made some banks into large transnational corporations, or TNCs, with branches all over the world.

In 2024, the world's largest bank, JP Morgan Chase, had assets worth 4.

21 trillion US dollars, and that's more than the total wealth of Hong Kong and actually many other countries.

It operated in more than 100 countries with over 5,100 branches.

Successive periods of low taxation has meant people now have higher levels of disposable income compared to those of their great grandparents.

This means more people than ever are using financial services such as insurance and pensions and fund management.

In 2023, financial services industries created 208 billion pounds for the UK economy and employed nearly 2.

5 million people, and that's 7.

6% of total UK employment.

With the rise of improved cybersecurity measures, online banking has increased in popularity.

This has given people greater flexibility around how and when they manage their finances.

In 2024, for example, around 86% of the UK population used online financial services.

There are now banks that operate completely online with no physical branches for people to visit at all.

Andeep says here, "I used to think online banking just meant cryptocurrencies.

Now I realise it is the procedures and processes that are online and not the money itself." So, true or false? Many banks are now transnational corporations, or TNCs.

Is that true or false? Pause the video and then come back to me.

Well, yes, hopefully you recognised that that is true, but why is that a true statement? Well, you need to think about what it means to be a TNC.

It means that the bank will operate in more than one country through different branches and online services.

I hope you got that one right.

Our second practise task today.

Complete the table to show the effect changes had on financial services in the post-industrial era.

You can see in the left-hand column there, we've got certain causes, and then you need to come up with the effects.

So we've got things like people began to have more stable and reliable incomes in the 1900s.

What was the effect of that in terms of financial services? Take a look at each of those statements, think carefully about the timeline that we explored in this section, and then pause the video, come back to me with some good answers.

Let's look at each of those causes in turn.

First of all, people began to have more stable and reliable incomes in the early 1900s, so your answer should include something along the lines of that people began to use banks more frequently to manage their money for them.

The start of the First World War, what effect did that have? It meant that people had less disposable income, so banks began to merge together in order to remain profitable.

We then had the situation where UK banks began to merge with banks from other countries, and so the effect of that was that banks became transnational corporations with branches all over the world.

Now, moving on to today's era, we have improved internet and access to cybersecurity, so it means that people begin to use more online banking and we have banks with no physical branches.

Our third and final part of the lesson.

How have science and research changed our economy? So, science and research industries aim to expand our understanding and then use that understanding to solve problems. Now, industries in this sector include lots of different things.

Things like pharmaceutical development, environmental research, digital engineering, bioengineering, space exploration, defence technology, mechanical engineering, and artificial intelligence and robotics.

And there are lots more that could come into this sector category.

Secondary and tertiary industries rely on science and research companies.

Don't think of them as completely separate from one another.

In the secondary sector, for example, a software developer may be employed by a company that produces smartwatches to come up with a new feature.

A food company may employ a bioengineering firm to work on new ways to make their foods healthier.

In the tertiary sector, you might have something like a government might employ a pharmaceutical company to develop a better drug to treat a disease, or a marketing company might employ an AI specialist to work out the most effective way of targeting a new customer.

Quaternary sector employees work alongside those in the secondary sector and in the tertiary sector.

Think of them as being a really important part of how those companies run.

Let's check our understanding.

Why might a secondary or tertiary industry rely on science and research industries? Is it to create new products, to make their product look high tech, to pay a fair price for raw materials, to ensure high standards of customer service, or to improve the efficiency of their product or service? And I'll give you a clue here, there might be more than one correct answer.

So pause the video and have another read of those options and then come back to me.

So why might a secondary or tertiary industry rely on science and research? Well done if you recognised that it is, yes, to do with creating new products, but it also might be to do with working with current products and making them work more efficiently.

As most quaternary industries do not rely on raw materials or a local market, often they're described as footloose.

This means they could be set up anywhere, they're not tied to a particular type of location.

However, these industries do need a highly-skilled specialist workforce.

In order to attract the best people to their business, companies need to do more than just pay competitive salaries.

Now, here Alex and Aisha are having an interesting conversation.

Alex asks, "If you were a game developer, what would you like your workplace to be like?" Maybe have a think about that right now.

What kind of office or workspace would you like to go to every day if you were gonna be developing computer games? Now, Aisha says, "I think I'd like it to be really state of the art, but also be in really nice surroundings to help me think creatively." Now, Aisha is onto a good thing there, and that's exactly what these companies have been thinking about as well.

Many science and research industries are found in science parks.

Here's an example of one here, the Cambridge Science Park.

These are specialist areas where these industries can occupy new laboratories or computer labs, but with green spaces nearby.

Being physically close to other companies that work in the same field as you can be beneficial, as ideas and resources can be shared and there could be collaboration on projects.

So within a science park, there'll be lots of companies who are all working in high tech, quaternary type industries.

Cambridge Science Park is one example of this, there's a map of it here.

It's got lots of natural surroundings, lots of green space, so hopefully when the employees are kind of trying to be creative, looking out the window, they've got something really nice to look at as well as have somewhere to enjoy their downtime.

There are good transport links, this is really important.

In this case, it's got a direct link into the centre of Cambridge so that workers can really easily get to that site.

Really importantly for a science park is that it's close to really highly-skilled employees.

And in the case of Cambridge, it's close to a really good university, so it's going to attract the recently skilled graduates coming straight out of that university.

And the land is on the outside of the city.

Now, because these take up quite a lot of space, there needs to be all the greenery and waterways and all the rest of it running through the site, it means it needs quite a large area to operate in.

So the land on the outside of the city is much cheaper, so things like the laboratories and the offices have a lot more space, you're not cramped into a small area, and this is gonna be really attractive to employees.

Let's check our understanding there.

Which of the following is generally not a feature of working in a science and research industry? A, being highly paid, working with highly-skilled individuals, working in the centre of a city, or working alongside similar companies? Which is not a feature of working in the science and research industry? Have another read of those options, pause the video, and then hopefully come back to me with the right answer.

Okay, let's see what you've got.

Well done if you recognised, yeah, you definitely would not be working in the centre of a city if you were working one of these science parks.

You would be highly paid, you would definitely be working alongside highly-skilled individuals, and you might very much be working alongside a company that's very similar to yours or certainly within a complimentary part of the industry.

So let's move on to our final practise task today.

We're now looking at a different science park, this one is in Oxford.

Write two annotations, that's a detailed label, that highlight features of the science park that would make it attractive to workers.

So have a really good look at the map, look at all the different features and how those things have been laid out, and then think about what would make this place attractive to workers.

So let's take a look at your answers here.

These are some of the things you could have included.

Well done if you noticed there's a nursery on site.

This means that childcare is really convenient for employees.

Literally it's on the doorstep of where you're working, you couldn't get more convenient than that.

There's a central lake, there's greenery for employees to enjoy, there's lots of walking space.

It means that, you know, people who work there would be able to kind of de-stress, take some time off at lunchtime, and maybe have some time to think creatively as well in those spaces.

There's a lot of parking for employees, it's close to a main road as well with access into Oxford.

This means that it's gonna be really easy for people maybe coming from the university to access the science park, and for people it's so much easier if there's parking on site, so they've really tried to think about what is it that would make people happy coming to work.

Let's summarise our learning for today.

Developments in information technology have made it easier and cheaper for many types of businesses to operate, as well as open new online markets to them.

Financial services have seen dramatic changes in the post-industrial era as banks get larger and more global.

Science and research industries benefit all sectors of the economy.

Science parks have particular features that make them attractive to highly-skilled specialist workers.

The post-industrial era was one of enormous change.

So much has happened to the UK economy in that time that you can't help but wonder how it's going to change in the future and the kind of impact that might have on the type of employment you yourself might start seeking.