Domino Pizza : COMPANIES MUST DO MORE TO NURTURE LEADERSHIP TALENT

Domino's launches new Leadership Index ranking talent in UK's top 60 towns and cities

'Northern powerhouse' needs to attract and retain more leaders

Vast pool of untapped potential could help plug leadership gap post-Brexit

Domino's Pizza Group, the UK's leading pizza company, today reveals which UK towns and cities have the most leaders.

The Domino's Leadership Index highlights which urban centres are successfully harvesting leadership potential, as well as those with a pool of untapped talent. The study, drawn from official Government data, ranks the UK's 60 most economically important towns and cities in terms of leadership.

Surprisingly, smaller towns and cities outperform the nation's bigger economic centres, according to the analysis conducted for Domino's by the Centre for Economics and Business Research. The Index's top 10 towns and cities are: Aldershot, Crawley, Oxford, Reading, Exeter, Cambridge, Brighton, Warrington, London and Milton Keynes. The report also reveals a substantial North-South divide with only one city in the North of England, Warrington (8), making the top 10 and many others punching below their weight. Unexpectedly, Manchester and Birmingham, which vie for the title of Britain's second city, ranked only 32nd and 46th respectively in the Index. Liverpool (38), Leeds (24), Newcastle (34) and Sheffield (39) all come well below their top 10 economic status, highlighting a need for greater training and development. By contrast, Oxford and Cambridge come third and sixth for leadership, thanks to the steady stream of graduates from their world-class universities, considerably outperforming their economic clout. High educational achievement also supports the leadership talent in Scotland, with Edinburgh ranked 12th in the Index, Glasgow 16th and Aberdeen 17th.

There are 3.4 million people in the UK classified as directors, managers or senior officials but that leaves 27.5 million people of working age, who could be leaders of the future with the right opportunities and training. Domino's is urging UK businesses to do their part in nurturing the kind of influential and inspiring leaders it believes the hospitality sector needs.

Simon Wallis, Chief Operating Officer, Domino's Pizza Group said: 'Domino's Leadership Index reveals some cities are overflowing with great leaders, but others are punching well below their weight. We must look at what more could we be doing to harness this talent, helping to plug the inevitable labour gap the hospitality industry faces as the UK moves closer to Brexit. The Government has a critical role to play in avoiding an exodos of EU workers from the sector, but companies must also do more to nurture home-grown talent. Government and business should work together to ensure we're doing the best we can to retain and support the leaders of tomorrow.For us at Domino's, great leadership is about strong communication and influencing skills, problem solving, and inspiring teams to raise their game; so far we've trained more than 18,000 people in these key skills.'

The UK hospitality sector alone needs to recruit and train more than 200,000 workers a year just to stand still, a pool of labour equivalent to a town the size of Warrington or Luton, where Domino's opened its first UK store in 1985. This figure could increase significantly with some 330,000 people in the industry thinking of leaving the UK due to Brexit, and further still with the effective end of free movement. Domino's wants young people to consider team leadership roles within the hospitality sector, which is why it launched TeamSkills, its training programme last year and made its learning and development materials available on its website for free.

Around 35,000 people work for Domino's across more than 1,000 stores in the UK, and over 80% of its managers started life as delivery drivers or pizza makers. Many Domino's team members go on to management positions in under two years, and some of its most successful franchisees began their careers on the shop floor, often having left school with few qualifications, but lots of ambition.

Simon Wallis went on to say:'We launched TeamSkills,which draws on Domino's 30 years' experience of what makes a great team leader, to help develop the next generation of leaders. We will create 21,000 UK jobs over the next few years, opening stores in many of the areas identified in the Index as having a talent pool. This includes clear progression opportunities for ambitious people in the North of England in areas such as Wolverhampton and Hull, helping to bridge the North-South leadership divide. With team members completing nearly 900 TeamSkills courses every day last year, we're proud of the support we're giving our future leaders.'

Nina Skero, Head of Macroeconomics at Cebr commented: 'The findings clearly illustrate the unequal geographic distribution of leadership across the UK. With some of the larger, more economically important cities in the UK having much lower levels of leadership talent than their smaller counterparts, it's obvious there is more to be done to promote leadership skills across the board. The research found there is a need for greater training and development, especially in the Northern cities, to develop and retain leadership talent.'

The report also reveals big talent gaps between neighbouring towns and cities with, for example, Exeter (5) ranking higher than Bristol (11); Bournemouth (15) beating Southampton (21); Cardiff (14) outranking Swansea (44). Manchester (32) comes ahead of Liverpool (38); and Birmingham (46) is placed well above Wolverhampton (60).

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NOTES TO EDITORS

For further information, please contact the Domino's Team at Maitland:

Clinton Manning & Georgia Lewis

dominos-maitland@maitland.co.uk

+44 (0)20 7379 5151

About the Domino's Leadership Index

This report has been produced by Cebr, an independent economics and business research consultancy established in 1993, providing forecasts and advice to City institutions, government departments, local authorities and numerous blue-chip companies throughout Europe.

Domino's commissioned Cebr to investigate which UK towns and cities have the most leaders. This research considers the UK's 60 most economically important urban centres, ranked by Gross Value Added (GVA)*. Using data from the Office for National Statistics, the CEBR ranked these towns and cities in terms of their leadership talent.

For each town and city, the ranking is based on: the seniority of the resident workforce, the level of educational attainment among the city's residents, the average weekly pay of the city's residents, and the city's job density.

The results of Domino's Leadership Index, including how each town and city ranks according to gender, can be viewedhere.

About TeamSkills

TeamSkills is a training programme, created by Domino's, designed to develop the leaders of tomorrow. It draws on Domino's 30 years' experience of what makes a great team leader.

At Domino's, we want to help people have a better future, which is why we're making our training and development materials available for everyone to learn the lifelong skills needed to become a successful team leader.

Our TeamSkills programme offers people hints and tips for on the job training from Domino's colleagues and third-party ambassadors, as well as downloadable workbooks covering the five basic principles we believe contribute to successful leadership:

- Influencing and empowering team members

- Creating an ambitious and high-performing team

- Expert open and transparent communications

- Inspiring team members to raise their game

- Effective problem solving and decision making

For more information on TeamSkillsgo to:http://corporate.dominos.co.uk/teamskills

About Domino's Pizza Group

Domino's Pizza Group plc is the UK's leading pizza brand and a major player in the Irish market. We hold the master franchise agreement to own, operate and franchise Domino's stores in the UK, the Republic of Ireland, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. In addition, we have a controlling stake in the holders of the Domino's master franchise agreements in Iceland, Norway and Sweden, as well as an associate investment in Germany. As at 1 April 2018, we had 1,203 stores across six markets, including 1,054 stores in the UK.