When the next US bank moves to Canary Wharf, from where will it recruit the IT professionals to run its operations? Not from the commuter belt, says Howard Dawber, but from the populations of inner city boroughs such as Tower Hamlets with which, for the past 20 years, Canary Wharf has co-existed as a neighbour, but rarely called upon as an employer.

However, locals will need encouragement says Mr Dawber, a strategic adviser at the property developer Canary Wharf Group. “Local students are academically outperforming their parents. But what they don’t have are adults to open doors for them because none of their relatives has business experience.”