Highly paid executives from the financial services sector relocating to Edinburgh are fuelling house prices north of the border.

Estate agent Rettie & Co has sold one £1 million-plus property a week so far in 2006, double the volume of sales at the top end of the market in 2005. James Whitson, director of private sales said that the rapid growth in multi-million sales was down to highly paid executives relocating to Scotland for senior positions in the growing financial sector.

Edinburgh was named last month as the best place to live in the UK for quality of life and recruiters report a growing trend for ex-pat Scots returning to the city for a better life for both themselves and their families. Richard Fletcher of recruiter Fletcher Jones told Efinancialcareers that he had also negotiated deals for returning Scots which saw them working form a home office for a London based employer.

Fletcher also said he had noticed a narrowing of the gap between London and Edinburgh salaries in the fund management industry in the last few years, so that returning to Scotland in search of a better quality of life no longer meant taking a pay cut.

The point was reiterated by a leading fund management group with operations in both London and Edinburgh. A spokesman said: “We pay what the market rate is irrespective of where the person is based. This is largely driven by the stature of the individual and their area of expertise rather than location. So, a strong manager in a competitive specialist area will be more costly.”