LONDON — JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Thursday announced plans to develop a three-million-square-foot JPMorgan Canary Wharf HQ at the Riverside site in London’s Docklands financial district, building a new U.K. headquarters to accommodate up to 12,000 staff. The project, which is expected to bring around £9.9 billion into the British economy over six years of construction, was also meant to signal a long-term bet on Britain and a jump-start for Canary Wharf’s rebound from the economic collapse of the pandemic, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2025.
JPMorgan Canary Wharf HQ secures £9.9bn commitment.
The building, a glass-and-steel tower to be designed by the British architects Foster + Partners and co-developed with the Canary Wharf Group, will become one of Europe’s largest office buildings as well as London’s biggest office building when it opens in 2026 as JPMorgan’s principal U.K. base and its most important location in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The combined Riverside construction and phased interim fit-out of the bank’s existing 25 Bank Street site is expected to contribute £9.9bn to the U.K. economy and help create more than 7,800 jobs over the next six years, according to an official announcement from JPMorgan Chase.
The bank already has about 13,000 workers in London and about 23,000 employees across the United Kingdom, generating almost £7.5 billion a year for the local economy and supporting at least 38,000 jobs in related industries. Executives argue that clustering more staff at JPMorgan’s Canary Wharf HQ and 60 Victoria Embankment will foster greater collaboration while maintaining a big, visible presence in both Docklands and the City.
Chief Executive Jamie Dimon has promoted the scheme as a vote of confidence in the U.K. government’s growth agenda, after Chancellor Rachael Reeves used this week’s Budget to reassure investors and not proceed with new levies on banks. It comes after months of debate over whether the firm would grow at its current home or move more workers into the City of London, with Reuters revealing that options had included a refurbishment at 25 Bank Street and relocating before the Riverside decision was made.
(For Canary Wharf, the JPMorgan Canary Wharf HQ comes at a propitious time. Visitor numbers to the Docklands district are now running ahead of pre-pandemic levels as bankers return to in-person work, Bloomberg has reported, even as the area still grapples with vacant space and higher borrowing costs. The new tower, as well as the promised public parkland and dockside enhancements around the Riverside site, is being portrayed as evidence that, while offices have become more distributed in recent months, large banks still believe there is long-term value in big central offices.
It is not the first time JPMorgan has leveraged a real estate pact to underscore its loyalty to the Docklands. According to the Guardian, it spent £495m buying its former Lehman Brothers European headquarters at 25 Bank Street in 2010, a deal that soothed concerns that the bank might move thousands of jobs out of London. Another Reuters report that year said the company was also reviewing a separate Riverside South skyscraper project acquired in 2008, as part of a longer-term ambition to combine its multiple London offices.
Today, JPMorgan says it will retain 60 Victoria Embankment in the City of London and spend money temporarily updating 25 Bank Street. At the same time, the Riverside tower is built, and eventually the U.K. staff at both sites are moved to the new building and the Riverside Embankment site. Construction of the JPMorgan Canary Wharf HQ would start after planning approvals were secured and was expected to last about six years, meaning that Canary Wharf — and Britain’s broader financial sector — is now in a position to see whether the bank’s latest skyline statement does its
