Business case studies

The company has been Newport-based since launch. In that time it’s been on a journey from a disruptive start-up, to a plc listed on the London Stock Exchange. Being based in Newport has allowed the business to benefit from good transport links, sound infrastructure and lower operating costs than you might get in a bigger city, and certainly than in London. The talent pool is fit for purpose too…

One of the benefits of being Birmingham based, is that we have so many local tech and education communities around us, all of which are incredibly helpful and collaborative. We’ve found and hired many of our team from local universities (Warwick University, Birmingham City University and Aston University), technology and coding clubs (such as Rebel Makers) and tech communities such as Innovation Birmingham and Silicon Canal…

There’s a fantastic energy up here. The region inherently has a strong innovation thread running throughout it that has resulted in it being one of the UK’s strongest tech hubs; one where creative minds can thrive, create and challenge the status quo. It’s this problem solving, creative and inquisitive attitude that goes down well at Sage. Add into the mix the warm personalities here and it is the perfect combination for us…

When the company first set out to build its team it was able to hire from the pool of mobile game talent that existed in Dundee. However, due to the demand for our games we quickly found ourselves sourcing talent from the various games hubs outside of Scotland. Outplay currently has 52 team members from outside the UK. This is a mix of 25 different nationalities in our studio. We value and greatly benefit from the diversity this brings our team’s skill sets and the player experience gained from a mixed team…

The strong academic and entrepreneurial ethos of the city makes Oxford a great place for a tech business to be located. The ability to exploit many networking opportunities and its name aids in this. On the other hand, Oxfordshire is a small city compared to London as everyone knows everyone else, but at the same time it can be hard to reach your full potential. Often I am travelling between both cities

Sheffield is a natural home for The Floow for a number of reasons. Firstly, the city boasts one of the largest and best quality pools of graduate talent in the country, produced by our two world class universities. Secondly, Sheffield residents enjoy a fantastic quality of life and affordable cost of living, which means we’re able to attract talent from across the country, and even across Europe, adding to the diversity of knowledge and expertise in this growing hub. And thirdly, Sheffield is well positioned as part of the Northern Powerhouse to develop its growing reputation as a centre of excellence for data science and digital industries.

When we were founding Bulb, everyone told us we should set up our business away from London because wages are too high here. However… we believe in paying people more and having a more productive team. London has been a fantastic home for our company because we can draw upon such a diverse pool of skilled people. There are so many different industries to learn from and so many different types of skillsets and capabilities available….

In Media and Entertainment we have to operate in a way that balances artistry with tech. That’s the nuts and bolts of the VFX industry: using tech to achieve your artistic aims, whether that’s the latest in GPU rendering technology to allow us to deliver perfect work quickly, or the latest software tools that give our artists the power to create stunning visual effects shots. Tech skills themselves are important, as there’s traditionally a very high barrier of entry…

Cambridge is a unique place, and we feel incredibly fortunate to be based here. The city has been generating world-class research for centuries, and altruistic and ambitious professionals for equally as long – and it shows. There’s an endless stream of altruistic yet experienced professionals willing to provide advice and mentorship. It’s also a great brand name, and gives us great credibility when we engage internationally to connect with experts and clients alike.

Northern Ireland has great educational establishments producing high quality people. We also have some world class technology companies where people have the opportunity to develop their skills and experience. As a result, we have been able to recruit some fantastic people. We work very hard to ensure that Novosco is a fantastic employer, including investing significantly to ensure we have world-class office premises…

With great universities such as Loughborough, Leicester and De Montfort, all within the county and championing tech, the talent graduating locally is second to none. Leicester also is perfectly situated to recruit talent from cities such as Nottingham and Birmingham. With Leicester being the one of the most diverse cities in the UK, we felt that the opportunity to attract diverse talent would only benefit our business…

I am currently working as a Senior AR researcher at a startup that has come out of Entrepreneur First in Augmented Reality (AR) space (http://www.selerio.io/). Besides working on the startup, I am an independent consultant in the video space helping build products for other startups in my spare time.

I enjoy being in the North of England because the tech ecosystem and communities are very welcoming and we all share a common goal of striving to innovate, push boundaries and be competitive with the rest of the UK. Manchester and the North West has a thriving community here and I’ve recently discovered that the tech ecosystem in the North East, namely Newcastle has a strong and collaborative tech community too.

We chose Bristol for its unique mix of technical, design and UX communities, incredible food scene and agricultural resources, and vibrant arts and music scenes…when I visited last year while scouting for potential locations I was immediately taken with the “big city but small city feel” and then learned a lot more about what this great city has to offer…

We started our quest to address the skills gap in 2015, and the more we do within our community and in our city the more we’ve realised it’s not the lack of skills that are an issue – we have plenty of skills just very little opportunity to showcase them. Through the delivery of Catalyst, we’ve been introduced to young talent across the city region who have the skills but don’t have the knowledge of what the creative and digital landscape looks like in the city.

Individuals accessing the Fund identify a bespoke training package that they feel gives the best line of sight back into employment. The outcomes post training are diverse. We’ve had drillers become drone pilots, commercial geologists turn into University researchers…