Just outside of the modern Norwich city centre was where the Romans founded their regional capital named Vente Isenoram. There were many traditional riverside industries however throughout the Roman and Anglo Saxon eras many jobs in Norwich focussed around the development of this area and the building of the city's cathedral and the building of many fortifications around the early part of last millennia due to an ongoing regional power struggle.

One of the most important source for jobs in Norwich was the agricultural industry. As with many other parts of the region and due to the expanses of arable land, the agricultural industry provided much employment for the community. The close proximity of the river Wensum made the location ideal for trade routes to other parts of Britain via the waterways. This created more jobs in Norwich from the transportation of goods.

This lead to the development of the Norman market which created jobs in Norwich for various entrepreneurs who would sell produce and bargain for incoming goods forming the initial stages of one of the most important medieval British economies. Over the next 500 years the market thrived and livestock was traded abundantly until 1700 where the overcrowding at Norwich market forced officials to relocate the livestock market.

Jobs in Norwich were abundant during the 17th and 18th centuries with the population hitting 21,000 making it the largest provincial town in Britain. The leather industry started to develop from the excess of livestock an excellent trade routes and the brewing industry created many jobs in Norwich, which began around the 1800s. Norwich boasted six of the largest breweries in the country supplying the local area and shipping beer into London.

One of the longest surviving and largest source of jobs in Norwich was the textiles industry. The middle years of the eighteenth century was seen as the golden ages in textile production for the region and the distinctive quality and complexity of design were sought after throughout the trading world however this was not maintained throughout the industrial revolution, it was thought that the industry did not accommodate the new technologies involved in mass production.

A change in fashions in the later 19th century saw shawls, the gross domestic product of the Norwich textiles industry and source of many jobs in Norwich, go out of fashion and without a product to replace it this greatly affected jobs in Norwich and some believe to be the beginning of the end of the textiles industry in Norwich.

Other main sources of jobs in Norwich were the famous Coleman's mustard brand in their distinctive yellow jars and more recently Norwich Union building society which is a mass employer in the city. In 2006 Norwich was the sixth biggest shopping destination in the country and it still boasts a bustling tourist destination for tens of thousands of visitors a year.