The city boasts the highest concentration of millionaires in Britain and an unemployment rate of just 2% but wage inequality and astronomical rents have heightened calls for change
The taxi driver swings his brand-new BMW out of Aberdeen train station. Behind him the sleek glass-fronted £250m Union Square shopping centre, with its Apple store and Hugo Boss shop, glistens in the afternoon sunshine. "Welcome to the oil capital of Europe," he says with a smile.
As we drive past Aberdeen harbour, crowded with cargo ships, he talks about his grandson. A multinational oil company is paying the 17-year-old £12,000 a year to study mechanical engineering at college. He will graduate into a guaranteed job. "Hell be on £100,000 by the time hes 25," the cabbie says confidently.