Ukuleles help City workers beat stress

Making music with a miniature instrument is not the most obvious way for suited bankers to escape the pressures of the trading floor.

However, for some City workers, playing the ukulele is the ultimate way of beating stress and improving wellbeing. It has been reported that since high profile business men such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett took up the instrument it has grown in popularity.

Accountancy firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) has held its first ukulele team building event. Class leader, Lorraine Bow, told The Guardian that the ukulele allows staff to do something and innocent in a high pressure world.

She said: “I’d love to see George Osborne and his team at the Treasury giving it some welly to Teenage Kicks.”

George Hinchliffe, a founder member of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, said: “Typically, most of the demand is coming form those who can afford the new Porsche or the new speedboat but who are not too happy with the way the rest of their life is going.

“For those whop are very career orientated, the ukulele is a great release. It’s easy to get pretty good at it very quickly, and that means it encourages playfulness instead of competitiveness.”

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If George Formby had been around today he may have been surprised to see high flying city workers playing an instrument that was once associated with cleaning windows and leaning on lamp-posts. 

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