POWERING THE DIGITAL ECONOMY 2015 FOREWORD

BARONESS JOANNA SHIELDS GERARD GRECH CHAIR, TECH CITY UK CEO, TECH CITY UK

In 2013, we created the Tech City UK Cluster Alliance to engage digital businesses across the From East ’s Tech City up to Edinburgh and beyond, digital businesses increasingly choose purpose of using their collective expertise to to work near each other, creating dynamic tech accelerate digital growth. clusters up and down the country. THE RT. HON. MP It became clear that great digital companies Each cluster has its own unique DNA and assets. PRIME MINISTER spring from collaborative communities of Every digital company is on its own trajectory. But entrepreneurs, supported by established nearly everyone we spoke to during the Tech Nation Backing the industries of the future is a key part of our long-term businesses, universities and Government all project said they work best when they’re near other economic plan to support business, create more jobs and build working toward common goals. This report like-minded businesses: sharing resources, ideas a more resilient economy. The digital economy has become an showcases 21 digital clusters across the UK where and expertise. integral part of our country and the rapid growth of many digital talent and great ideas have come together to fuel The UK’s digital economy is thriving. Venture innovation and success. investment in London’s tech companies technology excellence. For the digital landscape is far greater than the Through Tech City UK, this Government has supported digital capital alone – 74% of the digital businesses we entrepreneurs in London, creating one of the capital’s great success analysed are actually based outside Inner London. growing digital tech economies. is the right stories. We also committed to supporting the growth of our digital Our aim is to bring these success stories to life and time to shine the spotlight on this exciting network industry nationwide and Tech Nation shows the great innovation and show how digital clusters are working together to of digital clusters, and map out the prospects for thriving entrepreneurial spirit that is driving the sector forward create a ‘Tech Nation’. professionals and investors. across the country. What does this mean for the UK? The digital would like to thank our research partners, sector is growing and creating jobs, economic DueDil, MTM, Crunchbase, CareerBuilder, down the country is a huge national achievement. The Government growth and national prestige. The UK has the AngelList, f6s, Adzuna and all 2000+ digital will do all it can to ensure digital growth for years to come. fastest growing economy in the G7 and the digital companies that participated in the research. industry is at the of our growth story. Tech City has become one of the UK’s greatest The insights provided in this report are vital success stories. Now it’s time for Tech Nation. to inform policy making and ensure digital entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers work in partnership to make the UK the world leader in digital innovation.

2 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM Image: Central Working, Whitechapel, London WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We’d like to extend our gratitude to the 2000+ Huw Sawyer, Emile Coleman, Ian Scott, Tony Hart, companies who completed our survey. Thanks to our Tim Newns, Sarah Kemp, Michael Hayes, Tony partners for their research assistance: Richard Ellis Quested, Tom Bridges, and Steve Wainwright who and James Key at MTM; Damian Kimmelman, Ahmed provided oversight and additional content along with Medhat, Naaman Tammuz, Matthew Rock at DueDil; our interviewees Phil Jones, Anna Lewis, Simon Andy Chung at AngelList; Mark Lennon at Jenner, Katie Judge, Dave Maclean, James Burkmar, Crunchbase; Andrew Hunter, Doug Monro at Adzuna; Matthew Desmier, Tom Quay, Mike Hawkyard, Sanja Licina and Stephen Klesel at CareerBuilder; Soraya Jones, Stewart McTavish, Professor William and Sean Kane at f6s. Thanks to Daniel Korski and Webb, John Connolly, Sarah Cinch, Dominic Gibbons, Chris Hopkins at No.10 Downing Street; Andrea Jon Moss, Olly Headey, Andy Murray, John Peebles, Young, Department for Business, Innovation and Nick Sturge, Simon Bond, Bonnie Dean, Paul Skills; , the Mayor of London, and The McCafferty, Doug Ward, David Slater, James Hon. Ed Vaizey, MP, HM Minister for Culture, Layfield, Kevin McManus, James Duez, Paul Greyner, Communications and Creative Industries, for their Sean Clark, Steve Orr, David Dunn, Dave Fletcher, support for the Tech Nation project. Also thanks to , Gareth Jones, Lee Strafford, Emma those who helped promote the survey and provided Cheshire, Leanne Buchan, James Clark, Fredi additional oversight and content for the report: the Nonyelu, Mark Lumley, and Jim Sims. Thanks to Tech City UK Cluster Alliance, Jon Bradford, Eileen Seven Hills for support in the production of this ABOUT US Burbidge, Louize Clarke, Fiona Lettice, John Fagan, report. TECH CITY UK CLUSTER ALLIANCE PARTNERS We started life in 2010, with a mission to support the emerging Silicon Roundabout digital cluster in East London. Anchored in growth of digital businesses at all stages of their development, in London and cities across the UK. Examples of our programmes include Future Fifty, Digital Business Academy, the Internet of Things Launchpad, Tech Nation and HQUK. A publicly funded organisation with a private sector mentality, we advocate for the digital entrepreneur. We inform policy-makers on how to foster the right conditions to start, grow and scale a digital business in the UK. We aim to make life better for digital entrepreneurs. We work in collaboration with various community partners across all our projects and it is in this spirit we have created Tech Nation.

www.techcityuk.com [email protected] @TechCityUK

CORE PROJECT PARTNERS

4 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 5 INTRODUCTION DIGITAL CLUSTERS ARE ECONOMIC PHENOMENA THAT OCCUR WHEN A CRITICAL MASS OF DIGITAL COMPANIES FORM IN A SPECIFIC REGION

Digital technology companies* are pivotal to data-driven and complement existing research in Tech Nation provides the level of insight into CONTENTS the UK economy. The diverse digital industries this space (e.g. BVCA’s Tech Country, Silicon Cities the individual clusters, their strengths, and the that make up our nationwide technological DNA by Policy Exchange, Tech Britain and various reports opportunities for growth to make this a reality. FOREWORD 02 by Nesta) to help inform future debate and policy With 74% of digital companies based outside of a challenging economic climate. They are implementation across the UK. London, Tech Nation uncovers a national success ABOUT US 04 disrupting traditional industries, forging new Tech Nation seeks to decipher the UK’s digital story; from the highest concentrations in London innovative sectors and creating new ways of DNA using the following methods: and the Southeast, to the fast growing cities of INTRODUCTION 06 doing business. These developments are now • Quantitative and innovative Big Data IN NUMBERS 08 inextricably bound to our national economic techniques (with DueDil, Crunchbase, at established clusters such as Bristol & Bath, story and global competitiveness, interwoven so AngelList, f6s, Adzuna and CareerBuilder) Cambridge and Edinburgh, and emerging clusters closely that we can no longer view sectors and like Bournemouth and Liverpool. The report reveals: CLUSTER AND SECTOR • Survey of 2,000+ digital businesses from industries in strict isolation. SUMMARIES 10 across the UK in sector and capability of this scale in the UK. It has three broad objectives: • One-to-one interviews with 40+ KEY FINDINGS 12 • Digital technology companies are thriving • To understand the geographical spread, and tech community right across the nation FUELLING GROWTH 24 There are many smaller communities operating • The digital sector is growing in terms • To assess the technology capabilities, sector across the country, which are not included in this of revenue, number of companies and PROFILING THE report. We have highlighted clusters based on their employment UK CLUSTERS 28 digital technology clusters size and the response from the community during This is the beginning of an evolving project, • To inform policy, investment, and our research; our aim is that more clusters will which we hope to improve through continued PROFILING DIGITAL participate in future iterated versions. collaboration with the digital business community SECTORS 67 Clusters develop organically and are across the UK. The aim is to make it a live data coverage of the above. The digital economy is, quite entrepreneur-led. But the evidence we present project in perpetual beta form. METHODOLOGY 80 simply, evolving too rapidly. Indeed we came across a here shows that support from local and national Welcome to Tech Nation! number of challenges, from the complex to the very stakeholders can accelerate the growth of GLOSSARY 84 technology clusters. If more established clusters (see Methodology on page 80 for more information) generate their own momentum, smaller clusters Best regards, COMMUNITY PARTNERS 86 to analysing Government data. Our aim is to be need to be nurtured with tailored growth strategies. Tech City UK team

*Referred to as digital company in this report for brevity Image: Engine Shed, Bristol

6 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 7 DISTRIBUTION OF DIGITAL 98% ARE SMALL COMPANIES ACROSS THE UK BUSINESSES2 www.duedil.com/technation/2015 IN NUMBERS 47,200 74 % DIGITAL COMPANIES ANALYSED2 ARE BASED THE UK’S DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY OUTSIDE LONDON2 15% OF TOTAL UK COMPANIES FORMED IN 2013-2014 WERE DIGITAL COMPANIES2 GREATEST VOLUME OF DIGITAL 65% EMPLOYMENT 6 1.46 M CAN BE FOUND IN: CLAIM TO BE PART PEOPLE EMPLOYED OF A CLUSTER1 IN DIGITAL COMPANIES3 251,590 50% INNER LONDON FORMED 61,653 45K SINCE 20082 BRISTOL & BATH CURRENT NUMBER OF DIGITAL JOBS DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT 56,145 BEING ADVERTISED IN THE UK4 GROWTH FORECAST 51% GREATER ARE WITHIN THE 62% 5.4% 21 CLUSTERS2 4 OF THOSE WERE OUTSIDE INNER LONDON BY 2020 54,527 (higher than total READING job growth)3 (AND BERKSHIRE) over one million HIGH DENSITY CLUSTERS DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY JOBS WERE ADVERTISED IN 2014 (+28% year on year)4 Concentration of digital companies 44,951 compared to national average7 LEEDS AREA

3.3X 2.4X 1.9 X 1.8 X 1.5 X CLUSTER BENEFITS BRIGHTON INNER BERKSHIRE EDINBURGH CAMBRIDGE LONDON TOP 5 FASTEST GROWING CLUSTERS5 % BOURNEMOUTH 90 212% EXPECT REVENUE LIVERPOOL 119 % TO GROW NEXT YEAR1 INNER LONDON 92% TOP 5 CLUSTERS BY AVERAGE COMPANY TURNOVER5 77% 54% 40% 33% BRIGHTON & HOVE 91% of companies claim that their believe that their believe that their SOUTH WALES 87% GREATER MANCHESTER 74 % responding to our cluster helps to build cluster helps them cluster helps attract 1 Tech Nation survey conducted by MTM (September 2014) BELFAST 57% survey report they regional reputation to secure access inward investment 2 www.duedil.com/technation/2015 (January 2015) 1 have a network of and attract talent to appropriate and from private and 3 Career Builder employment data (2013) SHEFFIELD 1 4 Adzuna (January 2015) 47% entrepreneurs with affordable property public bodies 5 Based on growth of new companies formed since 2010 whom they can share (e.g. co-working spaces, www.duedil.com/technation/2015 INNER LONDON 42% experiences and ideas1 science parks)1 6 Out of 21 clusters analysed, Career Builder employment data (2013) 7 Concentration: digital companies as a % of total business SOUTH WALES population, www.duedil.com/technation/2015 (January 2015) 28%

8 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 9

TOP 3 SECTORS

PER CLUSTER*

Electronics andHardware andAdvertising andMedia and Software Data managementGames development E-commerce FinTech TelecommunicationsMarketplace and components devices marketing entertainmentdevelopment and analyticsand production and networkinglead generationEdTech HealthTech CLUSTER BELFAST BIRMINGHAM AND SECTOR BOURNEMOUTH & POOLE BRIGHTON & HOVE SUMMARIES BRISTOL & BATH CAMBRIDGE EDINBURGH GREATER MANCHESTER HULL INNER LONDON LIVERPOOL NORTH EAST NORWICH OXFORD SHEFFIELD SOUTH WALES

IMPORTANCE OF TOP 5 CAPABILITIES

CAPABILITIES PER PER CLUSTER*

DIGITAL SECTOR*

Cloud computing/Systems design Mobile and Visual and Content and Machine to machineNetwork infrastructure Firmware and Hardware Cloud computing/Systems design Mobile and Visual and Content and Machine to machineNetwork infrastructure Firmware and Software engineering UI and UX design Digital marketing Cyber security Artificial intelligencePayments infrastructureData science Computer simulationMachine learning Software engineering UI and UX design Digital marketing Cyber security Artificial intelligencePayments infrastructureData science Computer simulationMachine learningHardware SaaS/Web servicesand integration tablet developmentaudio designmedia production communicationsand protocols OS development development SaaS/Web servicesand integration tablet developmentaudio designmedia production communicationsand protocols OS development development Advertising & marketing BELFAST Data management & analytics BIRMINGHAM E-commerce BOURNEMOUTH & POOLE EdTech BRIGHTON & HOVE Electronics & components BRISTOL & BATH FinTech CAMBRIDGE Games development & publishing EDINBURGH Hardware & devices GREATER MANCHESTER HealthTech HULL Marketplace and lead generation INNER LONDON Media & entertainment LIVERPOOL Software development NORTH EAST Telecommunications & networking NORWICH Other OXFORD SHEFFIELD Minimal significance for sector Vital for sector SOUTH WALES Strength of capabilities compared to overall UK industry average *Compared to UK average, Tech Nation Survey conducted by MTM (September 2014)

10 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 11 SUMMARY POINTS

KEY regarding tech capabilities across the UK: 1 The UK’s digital ecosystem 6 Clusters provide tangible FINDINGS is thriving benefits to their members 2 There are vibrant digital 7 Access to talent and technology clusters across the broadband are key factors UK, diversifying in expertise when choosing location

3 Digital companies are growing 8 The focus on certain in number and size capabilities by local education institutions has led to sector 4 Digital is disrupting traditional specialism in certain clusters industries and forming new ‘born digital’ sectors

5 A number of core capabilities are driving the UK’s digital sector

The UK’s digital ecosystem is thriving 1 intelligence to video games development. This report includes an analysis of approximately 47,200 digital the UK (the dataset is featured in our online interactive guide www.duedil.com/technation/2015). We also compiled data 47,200 on employment; along with the qualitative and quantitative responses we received from our survey DIGITAL COMPANIES and interviews. ANALYSED The UK’s digital companies range from startups to traditional businesses 98% digital capabilities. OF DIGITAL COMPANIES ARE SMALL BUSINESSES*

*www.duedil.com/technation/2015 (January 2015)

12 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 13 14 EDINBURGH presence has contributed There are vibrant digital towards a thriving FinTech sector; digital companies are technology clusters across the three times more likely to UK, diversifying in expertise specialise in FinTech than the 2 national average. Two thirds of the companies who responded to our survey 15 NORWICH described themselves as being part of a cluster. Growing startup scene We found the highest concentrations (e.g. supported by one of the highest concentrations of volume of businesses within area) in London and academic research parks in the South East. However with a closer look, the UK. we can see that digital clusters have emerged across the UK, with their own identities and 16 HULL sources of competitive advantage. 74 % 21 OF DIGITAL COMPANIES network has generated fast- ARE BASED OUTSIDE growing sectors of software LONDON development, animation, marketing and advertising. 14 13 17 L I V ER POOL One of the homes of British gaming, a strong community of companies specialising in games development 8 continues to grow. INTRODUCING THE 10 CAMBRIDGE 6 This internationally 18 GREAT MALVERN 21 UK CLUSTERS recognised cluster has a specialism in wireless Leading cluster in cyber Ordered by total Digital Employment communications and security, centred around hardware, with businesses GCHQ. four times as likely to 5 16 1 INNER LONDON 4 READING 7 SOUTH WALES focus on electronics 19 BRIGHTON & HOVE The capital has the At the heart of the M4 and components as the 3 At 3.3x the national average, 17 11 largest volume of digital corridor enterprise with great potential national average. Brighton has the highest companies and workers belt and the traditional dominate the industry, density of digital companies with over 250,000 people telecommunication with specialisms evolving 11 S H E F F I E L D in the UK.3 in Inner London (12 in HealthTech and boroughs). 2 data management and High average company 15 analytics. turnover with expertise 20 BOURNEMOUTH in EdTech and 12 2 BRISTOL & BATH 5 LEEDS & POOLE telecommunications. 10 Recognised as a globally Evidence of strong 8 NORTH EAST A strong base in digital professional services and High positivity from advertising and marketing 18 12 BIRMINGHAM businesses, with formation of local companies cite fewer  major barriers to growth a growing strength in data provided by the North Rich heritage in advanced new companies growing by and a over 200% since 2010. 1 here than other UK regions. management, HealthTech East cluster. Its core 7 2  and FinTech. strength lies in software strong talent base with development. growing strengths in 21 DUNDEE 3 GREATER machine learning and MANCHESTER 6 BELFAST EdTech. Famed for its gaming sector, 19 One of the strongest 9 OXFORD producing global hits like 20 Manchester’s long- Grand Theft Auto. standing media industry networks for business Supported by a number 13 GLASGOW has now gone digital. The support, local customers and trading. Its ‘knowledge centres of excellence, Currently a test bed for average company turnover smart city technologies, 1 The NI Knowledge Economy Index 2014, http://www.nisp.co.uk/ growth is one of the economy’ is the fastest there is a growing nisp-connect/the-ni-knowledge-economy-index/ growing in the UK.1 specialism in EdTech and with a growing startup 2 KPMG Tech Monitor UK 2014, www..com/UK/en/Issues highest in the UK. community. AndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/PDF/Market%20 HealthTech. Sector/Technology/tech-monitor-q4.pdf 3 Largest proportion of digital companies compared to total number of companies in the area

14 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 15 GROWTH IN NEW DIGITAL COMPANIES INCORPORATED BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 (%)*

BOURNEMOUTH 212% Digital companies are LIVERPOOL 119 % growing in number and size INNER LONDON 92% BRIGHTON & HOVE 91% GROWTH IN DIGITAL COMPANIES 3 SOUTH WALES 87% FROM FORMATION DATE DATA BELFAST 73% Digital companies are experiencing a boom – over half of GREATER MANCHESTER 70% the companies analysed were formed since the start of 2008, with 15% set up in 2013-14 alone. BRISTOL & BATH 65% HULL 57% clusters like the long-established Cambridge cluster have BIRMINGHAM 51% a relatively small number of newer companies, with the CAMBRIDGE 46% digital companies in the region building on a local heritage in technology. In areas such as Bournemouth and Brighton, EDINBURGH 33% a large number of companies have emerged in the OXFORD 24% past couple of years, taking advantage of the areas’ NORTH EAST 24% growing reputation as digital creative hubs, and new NORWICH 21% 15% opportunities in sectors such as app development OF TOTAL UK and mobile gaming. SHEFFIELD 17% 53% – UK AVERAGE COMPANIES FORMED IN 2013-2014 WERE The formation rate of new companies is rapidly DIGITAL COMPANIES growing, with 53% more digital companies formed 50% in 2013 than in 2010. Some clusters are seeing a GROWTH IN DIGITAL COMPANY REVENUES EMPLOYMENT COMPANIES FORMED particularly sharp rise in the rate of company formation – SINCE 20082 Bournemouth has seen a rise of over 200%, and Liverpool a Digital companies are growing faster than the growth of 119%. average rate of business growth across the employment opportunities across the country. economy. Companies from our sample large Currently, there are more than 1.46 million digital enough to report data have seen turnover rise by jobs nationally, with the largest concentration an average of 6% per annum between 2006 in Inner London (228,572). According to Future DIGITAL COMPANIES FORMED IN 2013 AND 2014 AS A and 2013. Fifty company Adzuna, there are currently 45,000 % OF TOTAL COMPANIES WITHIN THE CLUSTER* Those digital companies operating in clusters digital jobs being advertised in The UK (excludes BOURNEMOUTH 24% are experiencing a higher rate of revenue growth IT telesales). Some 62% of those were outside compared to the national average. Companies in Inner London. LIVERPOOL 21% All of the occupations within the digital sector BRIGHTON & HOVE 20% average growth of 74%, 57% and 47% between 2010 experienced employment growth between INNER LONDON 20% and 2013. 2012 and 2013. In areas such as South Yorkshire, SOUTH WALES 18% Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, digital job growth actually outpaced overall regional growth by the BELFAST 17% of those we surveyed have seen revenues rise in the highest margin. EDINBURGH 15% last year and 90% expect it to grow next year. The percentage growth of digital jobs over the NORTH EAST 14 % next six years is expected to be higher than that of BIRMINGHAM 14 % all other occupations combined – the result of the formation of more and more digital businesses. GREATER MANCHESTER 14 % HULL 14 % SHEFFIELD 13% NORWICH 13% 1.46 M BRISTOL & BATH 12% PEOPLE EMPLOYED IN OXFORD 10% DIGITAL COMPANIES

CAMBRIDGE * Data represents the proportion of digital companies in each region formed 10% 15% – UK AVERAGE since January 2013 – those companies that are no longer active are not included. Source: www.duedil.com/technation

16 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 17 KEY CAPABILITIES OF DIGITAL COMPANIES, AND HOW THEY RELATE TO EACH OTHER*

Machine learning Hardware development

Artificial intelligence Firmware and OS development

Digital is disrupting Software engineering traditional industries and forming new ‘born Systems design and integration UI and UX design 4 digital’ sectors Mobile and tablet development Cyber security Digital companies exist across almost all sectors of the economy, and microprocessors, through to traditional sectors that have been Cloud computing/SaaS/ Web services our survey-based research: Digital marketing Visual and audio design Content and media production software development

• The next largest sectors are advertising and marketing, and Payments infrastructure media and entertainment (both 11%) Network infrastructure and protocols Computer simulation • There is then a long tail of companies operating in other ‘born Data science Machine to machine digital’ sectors such as E-commerce and telecommunications communications * Bubble size determined by number of respondents reporting the skill as a ‘core (6% and 4%), as well as in other traditional sectors such as FinTech capabilty’. Bubbles are linked if over 30% of companies reporting one skill as and EdTech (both 4%) core also report the other as core.

SECTOR BREAKDOWN OF DIGITAL COMPANIES SURVEYED* A number of core SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT 22% capabilities are driving ADVERTISING AND MARKETING 11% the UK’s digital sector MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT 11% 5 MARKETPLACE/LEAD GENERATION 6% According to our survey-based research, companies on average descried four areas as core strengths of their business, and declared DATA MANAGEMENT AND ANALYTICS 6% E-COMMERCE 6% viewed in isolation – it is unlikely that only one capability will power HARDWARE AND DEVICES 5% FINTECH 4% Similarly, 51% of those specialising in cloud computing also said TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKING 4% they were specialists in UI and UX design. The combination of core EDTECH 4% capabilities, and how they interrelate, drives the operation of these HEALTHTECH 4% companies. GAMES DEVELOPMENT AND PUBLISHING 4% There is also a strong relationship between company size ELECTRONICS AND COMPONENTS 2% infrastructure or cyber security are twice as likely to employ over 100 OTHER 11% people as those in visual design and content.

* Data based on self-reporting by surveyed companies, who were given a set list of options Source: Tech Nation Survey conducted by MTM)

18 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 19 KEY BENEFITS:

UK CLUSTERS

6 Access to Access to Access to Access to Access to public finance private finance social networks talent property Clusters provide BELFAST tangible benefits to BIRMINGHAM their members BOURNEMOUTH & POOLE BRIGHTON & HOVE A core focus of our research was identifying clusters – an economic phenomenon that occurs BRISTOL & BATH when a critical mass of digital companies forms in CAMBRIDGE a region. Clusters of companies interact formally (e.g. by trading or forming partnerships) and EDINBURGH informally (e.g. networking, socialising). GREATER MANCHESTER Over 80% of survey respondents in Edinburgh, Bristol & Bath, Inner London, Brighton and Hove, HULL ACCESS TO SOCIAL NETWORKS and Liverpool stated they view themselves as part INNER LONDON of a cluster – the highest in the country. Nearly all companies in Edinburgh (95%) Digital clusters are an engine room for the and Cambridge (90%) highlighted social LIVERPOOL growth of the UK economy. As part of the DNA NORTH EAST communities vary across the country. Areas of ACCESS TO TALENT NORWICH Brighton and Hove, and Bournemouth and OXFORD shown by the graphic on the right. Poole both have the highest percentage There is an opportunity for tailored local of companies claiming their clusters give SHEFFIELD strategies to focus on an area’s competitive them access to the right talent for growth SOUTH WALES advantage, built around that cluster’s DNA. A city’s assets, heritage and emerging digital capabilities ACCESS TO PROPERTY can be synthesised into a clear view of the region’s Identified as a benefit by 92% of digital businesses in Edinburgh survey respondents (% of total) areas of competitive advantage. 0-20% 21-40% 41-60% 61-80% 81-100% Whilst established clusters are organically available. Many businesses also believed KEY BENEFITS: cultivating their own momentum, greater support this was true in the North East and within the emerging, smaller clusters throughout Manchester NATIONAL AVERAGE the UK could accelerate growth. For example, Bournemouth and Norwich have burgeoning ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE ACCESS TO TALENT ACCESS TO PROPERTY creative industries, Newcastle and Sunderland are The strongest clusters for access to private ACCESS TO centres of excellence for software and video games; SOCIAL NETWORKS 54% 40% a cluster for digital professionals and investors. ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE By establishing a reputation for excellence in this ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE way, clusters start building their own momentum 75% of digital businesses in South Wales 77% for growth. and Belfast feel they have access to public 35% 33%

20 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 21 Access to talent and broadband are key factors when choosing location

A good supply of skilled workers and strong technical infrastructure are the top factors determining company location. Core operational factors (broadband, skills, market opportunity) and lifestyle factors for employees (quality of life, community, personal reasons) are more important 7 sector expertise. Immediate operational factors are more important regarding location than long term factors e.g. broadband is essential to a company’s ability to function.

The focus on certain capabilities by local education institutions has led to sector specialism in certain clusters The relationship between academic excellence fostering 8 business growth can be seen clearly across the country. A few examples include: • Edinburgh’s strength in digital technology is powered by excellence in software engineering as well as some of the more hi-tech • Cambridge’s success as a cluster has been based on strong applied research from its various faculties – great electrical and software engineers driving the specialism in hardware and wireless communication • Similarly, interviewees told us that one of the reasons the cluster in Bournemouth has formed is because of the strong supply of people with key skills from their local university – their marketing and gaming cluster is powered by (amongst other things) UI/UX expertise and computer simulation expertise

Image: Campus North, Newcastle

22 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 23 STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS BY CLUSTER

Access to advice Fast and accessible Good transport Positive economic Positive perception Access to finance Available property Strong skills base and mentorship broadband infrastructure climate of region FUELLING BELFAST GROWTH BIRMINGHAM BOURNEMOUTH & POOLE BRIGHTON & HOVE BRISTOL & BATH Digital tech clusters across the UK are growing CAMBRIDGE exponentially. Away from the big cities, we are witnessing pioneering business models and EDINBURGH digital solutions emerging all over the country. GREATER MANCHESTER Those with devolved powers to engage with local HULL clusters have an incredible opportunity to help INNER LONDON accelerate the growth of their digital ecosystem. LIVERPOOL NORTH EAST Funding future growth NORWICH OXFORD SHEFFIELD outside London and the South East there is an SOUTH WALES in order to build business growth through the Low to high level of importance support of local bodies. Greater focus needed in area to encourage growth Companies highlighted other possible channels that could be explored: leveraging European funding where available; stimulating private funding by encouraging local high-net-worth individuals, companies and angel investors to create funds; promoting links between private Fast and accessible broadband the activities of their cluster more transparent and Although digital connectivity across the UK is improving fast, network visible to national and international investors. speed can still vary. Data-hungry creative companies in Brighton, for Presently, support schemes available include public funds such as the JEREMIE funds, and bodies such as Creative and Innovate UK study aired concerns around broadband infrastructure. (formerly the Technology Strategy Board). The A number of regional and national initiatives are tackling digital British Business Bank’s Enterprise Capital Fund is connectivity, including the Connection Voucher Scheme and the Urban also a key resource, while initiatives like the London Broadband Fund (managed by Broadband Delivery UK). Greater coordination Co-Investment Fund (open to all regions) are between local and national initiatives will ensure the biggest impact and secure emerging, combining private and public money. nationwide digital inclusion.

24 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 25 OUTLETS DIGITAL COMPANIES RELY ON TO BUILD EMPLOYEE SKILLS

SELF-TAUGHT Transport visions 62% Transport infrastructure was highlighted as a hurdle in particular for INTERNAL TRAINING companies in Cambridge, Oxford and Norwich. It also featured prominently 51% among respondents from East Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire. COACHING AND MENTORING 37% are to create the environment where ideas and talent can move across the UK. ONLINE COURSES Clearly, plans like HS3 can help with some of the concerns voiced in some of the 36% Northern cities. LOCAL UNIVERSITY UNDERGRADUATES 32% Making space LOCAL UNIVERSITY MASTERS, MBA AND PHD 26% regions in the South East. The growth in co-working spaces and incubators TECH-FOCUSED EDUCATION ORGANISATIONS 22% companies. There are over 70 co-working spaces in London alone.* LOCAL TECHNICAL COLLEGES Publicly funded support is available in a number of clusters, through centres 7% like Business Growth Hubs and Digital Catapult Centres. businesses is a key need. The opportunity to accelerate growth could lie in supporting the growth of co-working spaces, incubators and innovation hubs across the UK. Access to talent

Advice and Mentorship tech community. One-third of survey respondents considered a lack of Survey respondents and interviewees indicated their wish for a coherent local talent to be one of their biggest barriers to growth. In some clusters, a business-support environment that provides layers of advice, mentoring strong link between business and academia is opening up access to talent – and support to guide tech businesses on their growth trajectory. More great examples of these include Cambridge, Edinburgh and Manchester. than half the companies we surveyed had sought out training, advice or The Witty Review, and the Government’s response, outlines steps mentoring from other businesses or sector leaders in the past year. to improve connections between entrepreneurship and academia. The Larger ‘hub’ organisations were also highlighted as playing a key role, Government has also invested some £18.4 million in the Tech Partnership. But supporting the cluster through provision of advice, investment or other companies in many clusters rely on other routes to build their employee skill resources. The Business Growth Service is a good example of this. In addition, base. Some 62% of companies surveyed said their employees were self-taught; organisations, were viewed as credible advocates for their cluster. We saw great strides in 2014 to tackle the issue. Educational innovations implemented by the Government include: the computing curriculum introduced in September 2014; Digital Business Academy, introduced by Tech Telling the UK story through City UK with UCL; apprenticeships for digital skills; short courses in digital its cities and regions skills (available April 2015); a National College for Digital Skills; an independent review of computer science degree accreditation; and the Tier 1 Exceptional By working together, clusters can create a story that highlights regional Talent Visa for technology and the Entrepreneur Visa, available for companies specialisms, attracting the attention of investors at home and abroad. to attract overseas talent from outside the EU. Tech City UK has already begun to build the case for the UK, promoting a joined-up tech proposition to both domestic and international investors. should be added to the Shortage Occupation List to further alleviate this issue. Better understanding of the most urgent skills locally that need to be met, and can present a powerful, coherent picture, showcasing the collective dynamism exploring the conversation on Intellectual Property, could unlock further growth. and diversity of the UK’s network of digital excellence.

* Source: London & Partners, 2014

26 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 27 21 UK CLUSTERS PROFILING THE PROFILED UK CLUSTERS

Clusters are the growth drivers of the UK’s digital economy. Every cluster has its own narrative, its particular area of expertise and potential for technology clusters nationwide using the NUTS categorisation.* 30 Belfast 52 North East (and Northern Ireland) (including Newcastle and Sunderland) 32 Birmingham 54 Norwich 34 Bournemouth & Poole (and Norfolk) 36 Brighton & Hove 56 Oxford 38 Bristol & Bath (and Oxfordshire) (and Gloucestershire and ) (and South Yorkshire) 40 Cambridge 60 South Wales (and Cambridgeshire) 42 Edinburgh and Swansea) 44 Greater Manchester 62 Dundee 46 Hull 63 Glasgow (including East 64 Great Malvern Yorkshire and Northern (and Worcestershire) Lincolnshire) 65 Leeds 48 Inner London * 5 of the 21 clusters do not include information on ‘key capabilities’, ‘notable sectors’, ‘key 66 Reading 50 Liverpool (and Berkshire) availability of data.

28 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 29 Waterfront, River Lagan, Belfast “The NI knowledge economy is growing faster than the rest of the UK. Belfast is the epicentre, and there’s great work going on across the region.” STEVE ORR DIRECTOR NISP CONNECT

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE PROMOTING PUBLIC FINANCE COMPANY PROFILES Northern Ireland twice as likely as the national average stating they could source it. InvestNI and the £29 million Techstart NI fund have done much to facilitate this. Local companies were more likely BELFAST (56%), local customers (54%) and cluster-based trading relationships AND NORTHERN IRELAND (87%). This could be attributed to NISP CONNECT’s work, linking up entrepreneurs to other businesses and services in the area. Founded 2008 DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT CLUSTER BENEFITS Analytics Engines develops analytics accelerators for software in Pharma, in and around Belfast and Derry/Londonderry. The ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE Finance, Oil and Gas. ACCESS TO 32,000 SOCIAL NETWORKS Quarter, including the development of the Northern 64% 44% KEY SECTOR FOCUS* • GAMES DEVELOPMENT transformation. AND PUBLISHING ACCESS TO PROPERTY ACCESS TO TALENT Founded 2014 • SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT 69% • DATA MANAGEMENT is a music B2B promotion AND ANALYTICS 41% 41% platform that allows businesses to send from a growing network of support groups such as Digital branded digital music promo campaigns Circle, a representative organisation for digital content, and direct to their clients’ mobile devices for KEY CAPABILITIES* feedback. NISP Connect, a support ecosystem for creating and scaling 1.7x MORE LIKELY TO companies, as well as the University of Ulster’s technology SPECIALISE IN ARTIFICIAL and knowledge transfer company Innovation Ulster. FUELLING GROWTH INTELLIGENCE Generation Innovation, local angel network Halo, and events 1.7x MORE LIKELY TO like Friday Night Mashup are also helping to grow the startup ATTRACTING TALENT, GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION SPECIALISE IN PAYMENTS Founded 2011 INFRASTRUCTURE community. Consumer and enterprise software are the The support of local universities plus the science park make Northern main drivers for business growth, with a young and rapidly InLifeSize brings Hollywood-grade and 1.5x MORE LIKELY TO Ireland a strong cluster in terms of technical infrastructure and AAA facial animation and augmented SPECIALISE IN MOBILE AND growing games development sector. property. However, its location can be limiting to company growth in reality to consumers’ mobile phones. TABLET DEVELOPMENT terms of transport infrastructure and attracting high-quality workers.

GROWTH OF COMPANIES STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS “The real advantage to AVAILABLE PROPERTY +22 me is the people. Northern 73% Irish people are renowned FAST AND ACCESSIBLE BROADBAND INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL +12 for their high level of COMPANIES INCORPORATED expertise coupled with BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 -45 GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE a work hard / play hard attitude. These attributes ACCESS TO ADVICE AND MENTORSHIP cultivate a very strong -56 team and an innovative working environment.” -172 POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION IAN SCOTT CEO TAGGLED UK AVERAGE *Compared to the national average

30 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 31 The Selfridges Building, Birmingham “In the Midlands the growth is in manufacturing, aerospace, car supply chain… Where there’s strength in health, it’s hardware rather than software” DAVE MACLEAN MANAGING DIRECTOR PACKT PUBLISHING

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE FLOURISHING HUBS TO DRIVE GROWTH COMPANY PROFILES Although the cluster is seen as early stage and still developing organically, talent is regarded as a key driver of growth. Cluster

Founded 2007 universities supplying the sector with high-quality graduates. Time etc is a service that allows the customer to outsource tasks to BIRMINGHAM approved assistants. Admin, customer CLUSTER BENEFITS service, copywriting and marketing are ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE ACCESS TO PROPERTY completed at a much lower cost than ACCESS TO hiring, as the customer only pays for SOCIAL NETWORKS DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT Birmingham has staked its claim as a leading digital 52% 52% technology cluster, with communities of startups and 20,064 ACCESS TO TALENT ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE and other key areas. 72% Founded 2009 KEY SECTOR FOCUS* Birmingham and the West Midlands have a rich heritage in 48% 31% CrowdControlHQ is a social media risk • EDTECH advanced manufacturing, including aerospace and automotive management and compliance platform. • MARKETPLACE/LEAD supply chain, with Jaguar Land Rover, Moog UTC and JCB The online technology delivers social GENERATION having major operations in the area. The growing talent base, engagement and compliance features • SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT through a single dashboard for multi- FUELLING GROWTH channel campaigns to help enterprises of prominent digital companies to the area, notably ASOS’s protect reputations online. KEY CAPABILITIES* development centre. Emerging hubs include Birmingham EARLY-STAGE STATUS 1.6x MORE LIKELY TO Research Park and the city’s production and animation studios; SPECIALISE IN MACHINE LEARNING Digbeth and the Custard Factory, one of the UK’s largest hubs The high competition for existing talent and Birmingham’s early- Founded 2012 1.4x MORE LIKELY TO for digital, creative and technology businesses. SPECIALISE IN CYBER SECURITY The growing startup community is supported by a established talent to the region. Recent reports highlight this is Whisk.com is a smart shopping list improving; the local science park, Birmingham University’s strength, tool that helps people around the 1.2x MORE LIKELY TO number of networks and organisations. This includes the world discover, organise, and enjoy SPECIALISE IN MOBILE AND Silicon Canal network; events like Launch48; and networks such as Silicon Canal (which is bringing together various recipes online. Whisk displays a “Create TABLET DEVELOPMENT and Oxygen Accelerator, one of the leading programmes tech groups) are helping to address the issue. The strength of education Shopping List” button that allows technology is currently limited due to public sector procurement, in people to quickly create a shopping list in the UK. Also, the Entrepreneurs for Future Centre within from any recipe online. GROWTH OF COMPANIES Birmingham Science Park’s Innovation Campus is providing most cases due to the length and complexity of the processes. key support services. Notable startups include the payments 51% transfer provider Droplet, mobile app developer Soshi STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL Games, and Meducation, the social network for doctors. AVAILABLE PROPERTY +48 COMPANIES INCORPORATED “The digital technology BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 scene is growing fast – GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE +35 there are around 40-50 events every month – from ACCESS TO FINANCE +13 a PHP group to a CEO meet- up – most of which weren’t around 18 months ago.” POSITIVE ECONOMIC CLIMATE +5 SIMON JENNER CHIEF ENTREPRENEUR -90 POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION OXYGEN ACCELERATOR

UK AVERAGE *Compared to the national average

32 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 33 Jetty at Poole Harbour, Poole “Bournemouth has a vibrant network of meet-ups and events, feeding off its community of creative and app development agencies.” MATT DESMIER FOUNDER SILICON BEACH

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE SOCIAL NETWORKING COMPANY PROFILES BOURNEMOUTH The majority of cluster members (83%) report a strong network of entrepreneurs to share ideas and expertise. In contrast, relatively & POOLE majority of companies are marketing services businesses and do not typically seek funding. Founded 2010 CLUSTER BENEFITS 3D Marketing Solutions specialises in digital, data and direct marketing for ACCESS TO TALENT ACCESS TO PROPERTY DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT SMEs and micro businesses. It helps ACCESS TO clusters in terms of the number of company registrations SOCIAL NETWORKS potential customers and provide strategic 7,272 year-on-year over the last three years. Between 2013 and 69% 41% and tactical marketing management. 2014, the cluster saw a rise of over 200% in the number

KEY SECTOR FOCUS* of digital companies based there. Digital and advertising ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE • ADVERTISING AND MARKETING companies lead the way, closely followed by an emerging 83% • E-COMMERCE community of app development agencies. • GAMES DEVELOPMENT Bournemouth’s strong digital creative sector is partly 21% 21% AND PUBLISHING Founded 2008 driven by the supply of graduates from local universities, We Are Base builds user-centred digital including the National Centre for Computing Animation products and services for businesses, KEY CAPABILITIES* at Bournemouth University, and the base of integrated using existing data. It specialises in mobile and web applications. 1.9x MORE LIKELY TO marketing agencies that have acted as hubs for local creative SPECIALISE IN DIGITAL MARKETING talent. The cluster’s entrepreneurs also point to the high FUELLING GROWTH 1.8x MORE LIKELY TO quality of life as a key driver. SPECIALISE IN CONTENT AND There is a growing sense of identity and buzz around the Founded 1997 MEDIA PRODUCTION ATTRACTING TALENT Bournemouth digital sector: 67% of companies reported Redweb is a digital strategy, design and 1.5x MORE LIKELY TO that they are part of a digital cluster. Events such as the Bournemouth’s strengths in digital media production require a strong SPECIALISE IN UI AND UX DESIGN annual Bournemouth Silicon Beach festival and Digital Day supply of skills, as best practice techniques and requirements change of services in-house, from commercial over time. While local universities are meeting much of this demand, consultancy to the creative and Bournemouth are supporting this community, along with technical aspects of web design. GROWTH OF COMPANIES organisations like Silicon South. Co-working spaces include promoting the region could help companies to grow more rapidly. Nest Space and Factory Studios, and the Open Data Lab 212% Bournemouth is the world’s largest open device lab, housing STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL over 450 connected devices free for anyone to test their FAST AND ACCESSIBLE BROADBAND +79 “There is a skills COMPANIES INCORPORATED products on. Leading companies include creative agencies BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 shortage wherever you Bright Blue Day and Thinking Juice, and app developer ACCESS TO FINANCE +62 look, although I suspect 3 Sided Cube. this is the same as the rest AVAILABLE PROPERTY +12 of the country.” TOM QUAY MANAGING DIRECTOR POSITIVE ECONOMIC CLIMATE +10 WE ARE BASE

-14 POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION

*Compared to the national average UK AVERAGE

34 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 35 Brighton Pier “As a digital company you can be based anywhere. Brighton is easy to get into London from, but you can also live and work centrally, and there’s a great network of companies to connect with.” ANNA LEWIS FOUNDER GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES VALOBOX

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE STRONG COMMUNITY AND ACCESS TO TALENT COMPANY PROFILES BRIGHTON The Brighton cluster’s core asset is a broad access to talent, with 80% of businesses saying that the availability of skilled workers is a core

impetus for locating there. Local university undergraduate courses are Founded 2010 key to building skills for 48% of companies in the region. As a reaction Brilliant Noise is a digital strategy and to a perceived lack of access to funding, there is also a strong base of innovation agency. It pilots and scales & HOVE new approaches to marketing and business that create long-term customer value. Brilliant Noise is helping to change CLUSTER BENEFITS every aspect of the way people work.

ACCESS TO TALENT ACCESS TO PROPERTY DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT ACCESS TO successful digital technology clusters. It has the highest SOCIAL NETWORKS 7,458 concentration of digital companies in any of the UK 68% 35% regions, and companies have a very strong sense of Founded 2007 KEY SECTOR FOCUS* community – 84% feel part of a digital cluster. ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE Brandwatch is a social media • ADVERTISING AND MARKETING The city plays host to a wide range of networking events 84% monitoring and analytics technology • SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT as well as larger conferences such as Develop, d-Construct platform. It gathers online conversations on a daily basis and provides clients •GAMES DEVELOPMENT and the Brighton Digital Festival. Companies are spread 19% 16% AND PUBLISHING with the tools to analyse them, helping throughout the city, particularly in the North and South brands and agencies to make smarter, Lanes, with co-working hubs in Brighton Media Centre and data-driven business decisions. KEY CAPABILITIES* 1.7x MORE LIKELY TO The cluster is supported by organisations like Wired Sussex SPECIALISE IN CONTENT AND and freelance networks such as the Brighton Farm. FUELLING GROWTH Founded 2009 MEDIA PRODUCTION Brighton’s burgeoning startup scene includes Clearleft, Crunch is an online accountancy service 1.4x MORE LIKELY TO a leading UX consultancy; Spannerworks, a Brighton search which helps freelancers, contractors SPECIALISE IN UI AND UX DESIGN PROPERTY AND BROADBAND SPEEDS and small businesses take control of 1.3x MORE LIKELY TO and analytics company Brandwatch, which recently bought Brighton’s high concentration of digital companies and lifestyle accountants, account managers and SPECIALISE IN VISUAL AND London-based PeerIndex for £10 million. Brighton also has a simple online accounting software has AUDIO DESIGN companies. However, this growth can put a considerable load on the helped its clients invoice over £1 billion Boss Alien, Studio Gobo, Candy Labs (part of Mind Candy) city’s infrastructure in terms of property and broadband. GROWTH OF COMPANIES and Shortround Games emerging out of the closure of Disney Black Rock in 2011. STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS 91% ACCESS TO ADVICE AND MENTORSHIP +30 “Brighton has a fantastic INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL talent pool – two COMPANIES INCORPORATED POSITIVE ECONOMIC CLIMATE universities and 30,000 BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 +14 students, with great strengths in the creative -32 STRONG SKILLS BASE arts. We’re working to break down the barriers -58 FAST AND ACCESSIBLE BROADBAND between businesses and universities.” -130 AVAILABLE PROPERTY PHIL JONES MANAGING DIRECTOR WIRED SUSSEX UK AVERAGE *Compared to the national average

36 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 37 Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol “One of the strengths of the Bristol & Bath cluster is a lot of creative agencies – a creative tech cluster, including content creators – but also a large technology cluster” NICK STURGE CENTRE DIRECTOR ENGINE SHED (& SETSQUARED) GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE STRONG NETWORK OF ENTREPRENEURS COMPANY PROFILES BRISTOL The majority of cluster members (79%) report that there is a strong network of entrepreneurs in the region. A particular strength of the marketing skills, with 48% of companies drawing on this support in the past year. This ranges from accelerators and seed funding through Founded 2012 & BATH neighbourly is a social network that connects community projects with INCLUDING GLOUCESTER AND WILTSHIRE companies who want to make a CLUSTER BENEFITS their story through photos, video and ACCESS TO TALENT ACCESS TO PROPERTY DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT The Bristol & Bath region has been recognised as a fast chat, then share across social networks. ACCESS TO Companies listen, back projects and get SOCIAL NETWORKS 61,653 London. It has a rapidly growing technology sector and 50% 40% is home to global leaders Aardman Animation,

KEY SECTOR FOCUS* (iMDB) and Hewlett Packard. ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE • DATA MANAGEMENT Bristol & Bath has strengths in digital and creative 79% Founded 1998 AND ANALYTICS industries due to its rich heritage in aerospace, high-tech Gradwell builds and manages • SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT 35% 31% ‘intelligent’ Internet systems that support • EDTECH the needs for broadband, email, domains, engineering talent in Bristol & Bath is supporting growth, web hosting and telecoms. Clients include with work ranging from Imaginarium’s motion capture to 75% of the UK’s telecom providers KEY CAPABILITIES* Maplebird’s development of micro-robotics. The cluster FUELLING GROWTH including BT, Virgin and Talk Talk. 1.2x MORE LIKELY TO is also a hotbed for future technologies, supported by SPECIALISE IN NETWORK organisations such as Bristol & Bath Science Park, and SHORTAGE OF APPROPRIATE PROPERTY INFRASTRUCTURE AND PROTOCOLS leading business incubator SETsquared. Recent innovators Local companies cite fewer major barriers than other UK regions in 1.1x MORE LIKELY TO include Ultrahaptics ‘-sonic’ technology, and Open- Founded 2013 SPECIALISE IN SYSTEMS DESIGN AND INTEGRATION Health Apps Ltd produces easy-to-use Local hubs and initiatives, such as the Engine Shed, The However, there is a wide range of support services, previously noted, apps to help people become healthier. 1.1x MORE LIKELY TO Guild, BathSPARK, TechSPARK, WebStart Bristol, Bristol that are tackling this issue. Also key is the delivery of Bristol Temple Its apps undergo extensive research and SPECIALISE IN UI AND UX DESIGN are developed alongside medics and Games Hub and Invest Bristol & Bath, provide a range of healthcare professionals. support services. As such businesses share a strong sense of providing accommodation for the digital sector. GROWTH OF COMPANIES identity, with 80% of companies reporting that they are part of a digital cluster. Factors attracting digital businesses to STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS 65% the region include talent, collaboration between sectors and GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE “The tech scene in +69 Bristol is really broad INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL a high quality of life. COMPANIES INCORPORATED – there’s a very strong ACCESS TO ADVICE AND MENTORSHIP BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 +62 creative sector, companies working on silicon ACCESS TO FINANCE +22 chip design and also cybersecurity, games and computer simulation.” STRONG SKILLS BASE +5 BONNIE DEAN DIRECTOR -5 AVAILABLE PROPERTY BRISTOL & BATH SCIENCE PARK

*Compared to the national average UK AVERAGE

38 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 39 Cam River, Cambridge “In Cambridge we do the stuff that makes the phone happen. There’s a continual generation of startups around communication.” PROFESSOR WILLIAM WEBB CEO WEIGHTLESS SIG

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE ACCESS TO TALENT COMPANY PROFILES A vibrant network of entrepreneur engagement, through organisations like Cambridge Wireless and Cambridge Network, and strong access to talent for talent is high. Local companies praise access to formal support Founded 2008 services within the cluster, with 70% saying that help on IP, accounting and Sookio media campaigns, consultancy and CAMBRIDGE training to small businesses and INCLUDING CAMBRIDGESHIRE always easily accessible, Cambridge Science Park continues to expand and household names including Toshiba, University of Cambridge, Drinkaware, Magic FM and GOV.UK.

DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT CLUSTER BENEFITS hubs. Its strengths span an unusually wide range of areas, ACCESS TO TALENT ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE including wireless communications, biotechnology, ACCESS TO Founded 1990 21,862 SOCIAL NETWORKS engineering and medical devices. % % ARM is a semiconductor IP provider. The formation of Cambridge Consultants in the 1960s 65 40 KEY SECTOR FOCUS* processors and related technologies to • ELECTRONICS AND COMPONENTS helped create the conditions necessary to commercialise deliver the intelligence in applications • DATA MANAGEMENT the research capabilities of the university and its students, ACCESS TO PROPERTY ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE ranging from sensors to servers, AND ANALYTICS sparking the area’s innovative identity over the last 15 years. 90% including smartphones, tablets, • SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT enterprise infrastructure and the Cambridge has been responsible for fourteen $1billion 35% 15% Internet of Things. (£642million) technology businesses, with two, Autonomy KEY CAPABILITIES* and ARM (a university spin-out), reaching $10–20billion 1.7x MORE LIKELY TO in valuation, an achievement unmatched by any other UK SPECIALISE IN FIRMWARE AND cluster. In addition to its expertise in hardware, Cambridge FUELLING GROWTH Founded 2008 OS DEVELOPMENT also has strengths in gaming (Frontier Developments, Psonar INFRASTRUCTURE DIFFICULTIES AND 1.6x MORE LIKELY TO on a pay-as-you-go basis, called Pay LACK OF AFFORDABLE PROPERTY Per Play. With a large music catalogue SPECIALISE IN PAYMENTS (Darktrace, Cambridge Intelligence) and digital healthcare INFRASTRUCTURE tailored to every market in which (Healx, BlueGnome). Other notable companies include While Cambridge itself has strong transport links to London, regional and it operates, and payment direct to 1.4x MORE LIKELY TO Raspberry Pi and Neul (recently acquired by Huawei). national connections are noticeably weaker. The dominant presence of consumers’ mobile phone bills, Psonar SPECIALISE IN CYBER SECURITY the Cambridge University colleges in the city centre has made commercial The established network of commercial, technical and of a bank or a credit card. academic research laboratories, as well as an excellent GROWTH OF COMPANIES business support environment – including a self-sustaining venture capital market and networks like the Cambridge STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS 46% Angels, Cambridge Network, and Cambridge Wireless – ACCESS TO ADVICE AND MENTORSHIP +10 0 “Cambridge has a very INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL mean that Cambridge companies are among the most likely COMPANIES INCORPORATED entrepreneurial culture. POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 to describe their cluster as fully developed. +62 We formed the ideaSpace accelerator to help -11 ACCESS TO FINANCE people coming out of the university get started on AVAILABLE PROPERTY high-impact new -31 ventures.” STEWART MCTAVISH -111 GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE FOUNDING DIRECTOR IDEASPACE

UK AVERAGE *Compared to the national average

40 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 41 Balmoral Hotel and Edinburgh Castle “Edinburgh is a great place to live, and cost of living is quite low so you can easily get a company off the ground.” JOHN PEEBLES CEO ADMINISTRATE

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE ACCESS TO FINANCE AND PROPERTY COMPANY PROFILES The majority of companies agree that they can access property, CodeBase and TechCube. Edinburgh companies also have very strong Founded 2008 EDINBURGH Holoxica is a high-tech startup specialising in holographic 3D past year, more than any other cluster. technology including digital holograms and holographic video displays. The CLUSTER BENEFITS digital holograms are aimed at medical DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT ACCESS TO PROPERTY ACCESS TO TALENT engineering design created from any a combination of its strengths in academia, extensive ACCESS TO kind of 3D model, scan or dataset. 17,136 history in software businesses (Cisco, Oracle, IBM, SOCIAL NETWORKS and Amazon) and the high quality of life, which 92% 65% KEY SECTOR FOCUS* encourages talented people to stay post-studies. Founded 2007 • FINTECH Edinburgh is a recent startup success story, with local ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE • EDTECH examples including comparison website Skyscanner, 95% FreeAgent is an online accounting • SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT 59% 54% needs of micro-businesses, contractors and freelancers. FreeAgent’s software KEY CAPABILITIES* Local companies feel a strong sense of community, with and its team of support accountants 88% reporting that they are part of a digital cluster. A solid currently help more than 35,000 2.9x MORE LIKELY TO customers to manage their business SPECIALISE IN MACHINE LEARNING support network of incubator programmes exists in the city centre, including TechCube and CodeBase. 2x MORE LIKELY TO FUELLING GROWTH SPECIALISE IN ARTIFICIAL Local businesses are more likely to seek support from other INTELLIGENCE members of the community than in any other cluster and 82% TALENT MIGRATION 1.4x MORE LIKELY TO reported having seen revenue rise in the past year. Digital Founded 2007 SPECIALISE IN DATA SCIENCE While Edinburgh University has one of the strongest computer science Kotikan is an app development source of talent and competitive advantage. Its computer undergraduate courses in the UK, digital companies still report that company based in Scotland. They have they have challenges around attracting talent. Both talent production been creating apps and advising on GROWTH OF COMPANIES science research budget is one of the largest in the world and mobile strategies since 2007. has helped accelerate growth of the cluster. It also has the and talent migration emerged as barriers to growth. oldest centre for AI research in the UK, with 43% of companies 33% STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL having sought technical support from the university. COMPANIES INCORPORATED ACCESS TO ADVICE AND MENTORSHIP +10 0 BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 “There’s a real range to the local companies. GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE +10 0 We have lots of FinTech because of the banks but 0 POSITIVE ECONOMIC CLIMATE there’s a great breadth of digital skills across the sectors.” -14 POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION ANDY MURRAY RECRUITMENT EXECUTIVE -24 STRONG SKILLS BASE FANDUEL

UK AVERAGE *Compared to the national average

42 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 43 Media City, Salford “High-end content creation and complex content and data management and analytics are Manchester’s two main overarching strengths” TIM NEWNS SENIOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER MIDAS

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE NETWORKING AND INFRASTRUCTURE COMPANY PROFILES GREATER 65% claim local networking groups that help entrepreneurs share ideas and support one another are a beneft. 68% praised the availability of working spaces such as SpacePortX, the Landing and . Manchester’s infrastructure investment is a key asset, with more National Grid supply points than London. It will be able to provide super-fast MANCHESTER broadband to 6,200 businesses in 2015, and the London Internet Exchange Founded 2014 (LINX) has launched its frst regional peering point in Manchester. Formisimo is an advanced form analytics tool that measures user CLUSTER BENEFITS interaction with web forms. It helps to increase conversion rates of online ACCESS TO SOCIAL NETWORKS ACCESS TO TALENT DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT Greater Manchester is a powerful hub for media, tech and retailers by revealing the customer pain ACCESS TO points in online checkouts and forms. content, founded on a strong research base and a growing PROPERTY 56,145 talent pool from the area’s fve universities. With over 65% 65% 100,000 students, Greater Manchester has the largest

KEY SECTOR FOCUS* student population in Europe. ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE Founded 1999 • HARDWARE AND DEVICES Some £3.5 billion has been invested to support 68% EON Reality is a Virtual Reality • MEDIA AND ENTERTAINMENT Manchester’s digital and technology infrastructure. For software developer. Its Virtual Reality • FINTECH example, Salford’s £950 million MediaCityUK, Europe’s 38% 35% solutions improve communication and knowledge transfer, from simulation frst purpose-built business hub for the creative and digital based learning and safety training to KEY CAPABILITIES* industries, now hosts the BBC and ITV plus a range of the creation of interactive 3D sales and content and production companies. The Sharp Project and marketing materials. 1.5x MORE LIKELY TO FUELLING GROWTH SPECIALISE IN NETWORK Manchester Science Park host a range of digital technology INFRASTRUCTURE AND PROTOCOLS and communication companies. In the Northern Quarter, a ATTRACTING SKILLED WORKERS 1.2x MORE LIKELY TO strong community of digital and creative startups has grown, Almost two thirds of companies believe that the Manchester cluster SPECIALISE IN CLOUD COMPUTING/ alongside the SpacePortX co-working space. delivers benefts regarding access to talent. There are some 100,000 Founded 2012 SAAS/WEB SERVICES Various networks and events are supporting the thriving students in Manchester at any one time, providing the cluster with access to Bright Future Software provides 1.1x MORE LIKELY TO startup scene, including Drinkabout Manchester and rich, diverse talent. Conversely, some still feel there is a shortage of talent software solutions for companies SPECIALISE IN VISUAL AND the online group, Manchester Startups. Local academic requiring a more stable and AUDIO DESIGN in the cluster, along with poor transport infrastructure, despite its national communicative relationship for their expertise is also an asset; The University of Manchester has and international connections. However there is a £1.5 billion public sector onshore software development projects. specialisms in life sciences and materials science, and the GROWTH OF COMPANIES fund that has been created for transport schemes, as well as HS2 and HS3. longest established school of Computer Science in the UK. Meanwhile, Manchester Metropolitan’s new digital hub, the STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS 70% Shed, ofers space for graduates to test their technology. AVAILABLE PROPERTY +72 INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL “Manchester University Notable companies include laterooms.com and boohoo. is possibly our biggest COMPANIES INCORPORATED FAST AND ACCESSIBLE BROADBAND BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 com. Key startups include Wakelet and Niftydrive. +29 asset – it has a global top 40 computer science -10 ACCESS TO ADVICE AND MENTORSHIP department, although we still have too many GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE engineers leaving -17 the city.” DOUG WARD -58 POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION CO-FOUNDER TECH BRITAIN

*Compared to the national average UK AVERAGE

44 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 45 Humber Bridge, Hessle “There are strong local networks – such as Spencer Engineering’s incubating of local technology firms.” DOMINIC GIBBONS MANAGING DIRECTOR WYKELAND GROUP

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE FORMAL TRADING PARTNER NETWORKS COMPANY PROFILES The majority of cluster members (73%) cited the strong network of entrepreneurs to share ideas and experiences with, while 45% said that a key advantage is that they can develop formal relationships, such as trading or partnering, with other companies in the cluster. HULL However, relatively few believe that the cluster delivers benefts in terms of access to public or private fnance (27% and 23% respectively), INCLUDING EAST YORKSHIRE AND NORTHERN LINCOLNSHIRE or access to talent (32%). The cluster is still quite early-stage, with all three of these areas signifcantly below the national average. Founded 1994 Trident is the creator of several digital DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT The emerging digital technology community in East brand-management and E-commerce CLUSTER BENEFITS related services that are utilised by Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire is focused around ACCESS TO PROPERTY ACCESS TO TALENT some of the worlds’ best-known FMCG Hull, with concentrations in Grimsby, Howden and Melton. companies. It is now a $65,000,000, 12,219 ACCESS TO 650 employee company with facilities in The region is characterised by sizeable locally grown tech SOCIAL NETWORKS Singapore, China and USA. KEY SECTOR FOCUS* companies (Trident, Ebuyer, Summit) as well as a range of 36% 32% • SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT startups. These have been supported by signifcant local • ADVERTISING AND MARKETING private sector investment including £15 million by the ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE • GAMES DEVELOPMENT Wykeland Group into C4DI Digital Hub, a co-working space AND PUBLISHING 73% Founded 2008 launching its own accelerator in 2015. Cloud2 delivers fast enterprise The high-speed fbre optic network provided by Kingston 27% 23% intranets, business intelligence and KEY CAPABILITIES* Communications is especially important for local animation clinical advice solutions focused on the NHS and corporate sectors. 1.9x MORE LIKELY TO and design businesses. Other local competitive advantages SPECIALISE IN PAYMENTS include the low cost of living and Hull University’s strong INFRASTRUCTURE computer sciences department. Larger innovation hubs, FUELLING GROWTH 1.7x MORE LIKELY TO such as Spencer Engineering, have played a key role SPECIALISE IN COMPUTER in growing the local startup community and support Founded 2007 SIMULATION POOR TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE environment by providing advice and investment. Other hub Sypro is a software product company 1.6x MORE LIKELY TO organisations in the area include PwC, Ebuyer, and Amazon Hull’s fast fbre broadband network is regarded as a strong asset of providing project management software SPECIALISE IN VISUAL AND the region, but survey respondents say that a lack of road and rail links for over £3 billion of global construction AUDIO DESIGN Web Services, through their Activate startup programme. projects. hamper company development. GROWTH OF COMPANIES STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS

AVAILABLE PROPERTY 57% +85 “Hull’s digital cluster reflects an established INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL FAST AND ACCESSIBLE BROADBAND COMPANIES INCORPORATED +58 service sector and a BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 growing startup scene -26 ACCESS TO ADVICE AND MENTORSHIP as well as innovative companies that pre-date GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE digital but have pivoted -55 to become digital.” JOHN CONNOLLY -95 POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION CO-FOUNDER C4DI

*Compared to the national average UK AVERAGE

46 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 47 and The Bower Building, London “London is Europe’s number one tech capital and is competing on a global scale.” DAVID SLATER DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT LONDON & PARTNERS

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE THE BEST TECH TALENT AND PRIVATE FINANCE IN EUROPE COMPANY PROFILES INNER London’s prime tech skills range from developers to designers to data scientists, and nearly two thirds cited this as a key beneft of the London cluster. London is supported by 45 higher education institutions, including fve of the world’s most prestigious institutions; King’s College, Imperial College, University College London, London School of Economics and LONDON London Business School. London’s top position in private fnance is COVERING TWELVE BOROUGHS refected well, with 51% of businesses saying they had sought fnancial Founded 2006 support in the past year. GoSquared helps over 50,000 businesses understand and connect with CLUSTER BENEFITS DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT As Europe’s digital capital, Tech City in East London its online customers in more meaningful ACCESS TO TALENT ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE ways through easy-to-use software and comprises thousands of companies, from multinationals real-time data analytics. like and Amazon, to fast-growing local companies ACCESS TO 251,590 SOCIAL NETWORKS like Transferwise, Unruly, Busuu and GoCardless, as well 65% 43% KEY SECTOR FOCUS* as physical hubs like Google Campus and UCL/Cisco’s Idea London. Founded 2007 • FINTECH ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE ACCESS TO PROPERTY • MARKETPLACE/LEAD In addition to Tech City, other geographical tech hubs 81% Spektrix provides cloud-based GENERATION have formed, including , the Knowledge ticketing and marketing software for • DATA MANAGEMENT arts venues. The company lets arts AND ANALYTICS Quarter (King’s Cross), White City (Imperial West), the 26% 22% organisations grow their audiences and Olympic Park, House, Kentish Town, Tech City increase revenue through its innovative technology and support team. KEY CAPABILITIES* Croydon, Soho, Chiswick Park ‘Media Village’, among others. Ecosystem-wise, in London alone there are over 36 FUELLING GROWTH 1.8x MORE LIKELY TO business accelerators (eg. Seedcamp, Wayra, Techstars, SPECIALISE IN DATA SCIENCE Microsoft Ventures, Future Fifty and London Stock AFFORDABLE PROPERTY AND TECHNICAL INFRASTRUCTURE Founded 2007 1 1.6x MORE LIKELY TO Exchange’s Elite) as well as over 70 co-working spaces Despite having some of the country’s most fexible working spaces in the SPECIALISE IN MACHINE LEARNING MUBI is a curated video-on-demand (eg. Central Working, Level39, Trampery, Second Home, world, such as The Trampery, Central Working, Second Home, TechHub, subscription service available anytime, 1.8x MORE LIKELY TO TechHub, White Bear Yard, HereEast, WeWork and Warner White Bear Yard, WeWork, RainMaking Loft and Warner Yard, the lack anywhere. Every day MUBI’s in-house SPECIALISE IN PAYMENTS Yard, among others). Additionally, community networking flm experts hand-pick a new cult, classic INFRASTRUCTURE of afordable property can be problematic. There can also be difculties or award-winning flm for its members organisations like 3beards, London’s Tech Meet-ups, Tech with broadband speeds and the ease of hiring enough skilled workers fast to watch and discuss. London Advocates and Tech City UK are helping expedite GROWTH OF COMPANIES enough to fuel the growth of the businesses. cluster engagement. London excels across the board, with particular STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS 92% strengths in FinTech, E-commerce, AdTech, Media and POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION +52 “The property market for INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL HealthTech. Peer-to-peer platforms, marketplaces, software COMPANIES INCORPORATED businesses assumes that GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 development and data analytics are some of the key +23 you know how big you’re capabilities that stand out. going to be next year – -14 ACCESS TO FINANCE that’s not realistic for fast- growing companies, and FAST AND ACCESSIBLE BROADBAND it’s why co-working spaces -23 are so important.” JAMES LAYFIELD -58 AVAILABLE PROPERTY CEO CENTRAL WORKING

UK AVERAGE *Compared to the national average 1 Source: London & Partners, 2014

48 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 49 Albert Docks, Liverpool “Liverpool has the beginnings of an eHealth and tele-care cluster. We have a chance to steal a march on other UK cities in this field. ” KEVIN MCMANUS HEAD OF CREATIVE & DIGITAL INVESTMENT LIVERPOOL VISION

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE INFORMAL NETWORKS OF ENTREPRENEURS COMPANY PROFILES Afordable property is available in the cluster, supported by funding Liverpool has received from the European Regional Development Fund and the Northwest Regional Development Agency. In particular, as part of the development of Baltic Creative’s development, a LIVERPOOL Community Interest Company. CLUSTER BENEFITS Founded 2007 Studio Mashbo is a digital development ACCESS TO PROPERTY ACCESS TO TALENT agency that focuses on creating ACCESS TO online problem-solving software for SOCIAL NETWORKS DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT Liverpool is particularly notable for its games development businesses. It enables business users to 53% 37% streamline web applications and make and benefts from a rich history in this space. Psygnosis, mobile and tablet websites 9,560 founded there in 1984, was a pioneer in racing games more responsive. development in the UK and was quickly bought by Sony. 77% ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE KEY SECTOR FOCUS* Liverpool’s long-established gaming heritage from the • GAMES DEVELOPMENT 1990s is refected in the current picture. Since the closure 27% 17% AND PUBLISHING of Sony Studio Liverpool in 2012, talented developers have Founded 2013 • SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT formed a number of local companies, including umbrella LivingLens turns users’ video content • ADVERTISING AND MARKETING into a searchable knowledge base. studio Starship and games company Firesprite. There are It takes the user’s video content and also growing clusters focused on IoT and HealthTech, as enables them to search speech KEY CAPABILITIES* well as a strong ecosystem of mobile app development and FUELLING GROWTH within the videos. 2.8x MORE LIKELY TO creative agencies, including Studio Mashbo and Draw+Code. SPECIALISE IN ARTIFICIAL The Baltic Triangle, the agency and gaming heartland, has ACCESS TO FINANCE INTELLIGENCE become an important hub for the cluster, providing a variety Access to fnance is key in Liverpool due to the strong concentration MORE LIKELY TO 2.1x of high-quality working spaces – such as Baltic Creative – for of gaming and digital creative companies that require signifcant Founded 2011 SPECIALISE IN FIRMWARE digital technology businesses. Away from this area, Liverpool AND OPERATING SYSTEM investment for development. A number of companies, such as Sentric Ripstone Publishing is an independent DEVELOPMENT DoES provides a co-working space, workshop and events hub Music, have relied on fnance from outside the region. However this games publisher specialising in digital for entrepreneurs and makers. A small but growing cluster of distribution. Ripstone is best known 2.1x MORE LIKELY TO is improving with the NW Fund, Merseyside Special Investment for games such as Pure Chess and SPECIALISE IN VISUAL AND education and health frms are also located in the Liverpool Fund, Mayoral Investment Fund, and Standfast (focused on the Knytt Underground. AUDIO DESIGN Science and Innovation Park. Support organisations include games industry). Liverpool Vision, which also supports an e-health cluster as GROWTH OF COMPANIES part of the TSB-supported More Independent programme. STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS “A new generation of GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE +48 startups has grown from 119 % the skills base left over ACCESS TO ADVICE AND MENTORSHIP INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL +37 from companies such as COMPANIES INCORPORATED Sony. I think the growth is BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 -30 POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION also linked to the inherent entrepreneurial spirit POSITIVE ECONOMIC CLIMATE that runs throughout -37 Liverpool as a city.” EMILE COLEMAN -56 ACCESS TO FINANCE CEO GLOBALL COACH

UK AVERAGE *Compared to the national average

50 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 51 Millenium Bridge, Gateshead “There’s a real myriad of companies in the North East, including a strong heritage of advanced manufacturing.” DAVID DUNN CEO SUNDERLAND SOFTWARE CITY

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE HIGH SATISFACTION COMPANY PROFILES Companies in the North East are some of the most positive in the UK about the benefts delivered by their cluster. Local networking groups help entrepreneurs share ideas and support one another, while co-working spaces throughout the region, such as Campus North, NORTH EAST provide afordable space for startups. Some 48% of companies had sought public fnance in the past year, refecting Sunderland Software INCLUDING NORTHUMBERLAND, TYNE AND WEAR City’s work introducing companies to Innovate UK. CLUSTER BENEFITS Founded 2006 DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT Newcastle and Sunderland form the core of this cluster. ACCESS TO PROPERTY ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE Saggezza is a global solutions provider Its strong reputation for IT-based software engineering ACCESS TO SOCIAL NETWORKS that combines software development 26,856 and back-ofce IT support businesses is underlined by the % % and implementation with its data presence of FTSE 100 company Sage. Crucially, fve local 70 57 analytics platform. KEY SECTOR FOCUS* universities supply plentiful tech talent. ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE ACCESS TO TALENT • SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT With its strong industrial history, this is an established % • ADVERTISING AND MARKETING community with a strong sense of identity – 77% of 86 • HEALTHTECH companies report that they are part of a digital cluster. 53% 53% Founded 2013 The region has traditionally shown strengths in software Reframed is a social platform which KEY CAPABILITIES* development and gaming; leading games developers include enables users to comment on videos in Ubisoft Refections, Epic Games UK and CCP Games. real time, and share their videos and 1.5x MORE LIKELY TO comments with other users. SPECIALISE IN MACHINE TO Both private and public organisations support companies MACHINE COMMUNICATIONS in this cluster. Over half of companies rely on local FUELLING GROWTH 1.3x MORE LIKELY TO universities for training and recruitment, signifcantly above SPECIALISE IN CLOUD COMPUTING/ the national average. The area boasts a busy calendar of WEAK INFRASTRUCTURE AND TALENT POOL Founded 1991 SAAS/WEB SERVICES digital technology events, including Dynamo14, Thinking Recent investment by Newcastle City Council, Sunderland and Perfect Image is a full-service IT 1.3x MORE LIKELY TO Digital, VRTGO, and The DIBI Conference, and plentiful BT in superfast broadband has clearly been successful, with local provider, delivering tailored solutions SPECIALISE IN SYSTEMS DESIGN support for digital companies. This includes Campus North, and services that improve its customers’ AND INTEGRATION companies much less likely than their peers to complain about businesses. It provides managed local VC Northstar Ventures, Sunderland Software City technical infrastructure. However, weak transport links in the region infrastructure and cloud services. and pre-seed accelerator Ignite, which has been key to the GROWTH OF COMPANIES are a concern, as is talent’s attraction to the region. creation of a number of digital startups. STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS

24% FAST AND ACCESSIBLE BROADBAND +65 INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL “There are clusters of activity across the North COMPANIES INCORPORATED AVAILABLE PROPERTY BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 +40 East – Newcastle is the hub, but Sunderland and -1 POSITIVE ECONOMIC CLIMATE Gateshead also have their own communities.” -5 GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE PAUL SMITH CO-FOUNDER & CEO IGNITE 100 -97 POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION

*Compared to the national average UK AVERAGE

52 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 53 Norwich Castle “Norwich has strong universities and produces talented people. There has been a realisation that there is enough of a quantum mass of bright people to stay here.” JAMES DUEZ CO-FOUNDER RAINBIRD TECHNOLOGIES GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE SOCIAL NETWORKS COMPANY PROFILES Most cluster members (73%) report that there is a strong network of entrepreneurs to share ideas and experiences with, refecting the membership bases of local organisations such as SyncNorwich and Agile East Anglia. NORWICH Founded 2004 CLUSTER BENEFITS MADE is a digital communications AND NORFOLK ACCESS TO PROPERTY ACCESS TO TALENT agency, supplying branding, print ACCESS TO design, digital services and strategic SOCIAL NETWORKS marketing support to organisations in DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT A newly developing cluster, there is a growing startup 32% 32% East Anglia and London. scene in Norwich and East Yarmouth, that draws on the area’s existing creative sector. 14,521 ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE Survey respondents in Norfolk were almost three times 82% as likely as the national average to be marketing services KEY SECTOR FOCUS* 24% 15% Founded 2012 • TELECOMMUNICATIONS businesses. There is an ever-increasing body of technology Naked Element designs and builds AND NETWORKS startups emerging, including online carpooling service made-to-measure enterprise software • ADVERTISING AND MARKETING company Liftshare, and customer feedback survey company and cross-platform mobile apps. • SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT Servicetick. This ecosystem is supported by networks such as SyncNorwich, which has over 750 members, Norfolk KEY CAPABILITIES* Developers, and meet-up group Hot Source. FUELLING GROWTH Support from local companies such as Proxama, has 1.4x MORE LIKELY TO Founded 2013 SPECIALISE IN CONTENT AND also played a prominent role. This includes setting up WEAK INFRASTRUCTURE AND EARLY-STAGE STATUS Rainbird is a cloud-based artifcial MEDIA PRODUCTION Whitespace, a co-working space in Norwich City Centre. intelligence platform that enables 1.2x MORE LIKELY TO Another key driver is the strong supply of creative graduates Few believe that the cluster delivers enough benefts in terms of people to build smart decision tools, by capturing their expertise on any SPECIALISE IN MACHINE TO coming out of two local universities. In particular, graduates access to public or private fnance (15% and 24% respectively), despite MACHINE COMMUNICATIONS subject and publishing a virtual in computer science, software engineering and flm, the recent emergence of the Anglia Capital Group, which grew out online ‘expert’ with human-decision 1.2x MORE LIKELY TO television and media studies from the University of East of Cambridge Capital Group, and Connect East, a business angel making capabilities. Rainbird can be SPECIALISE IN NETWORK network. It was also felt that the cluster needs to do more to raise its used to diagnose problems, make INFRASTRUCTURE AND PROTOCOLS Anglia and video games art, design, digital photography, recommendations and analyse data. animation, and flm graduates from Norwich University for visibility as a technology hub. GROWTH OF COMPANIES the Arts. STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS 21% ACCESS TO FINANCE +44 “Norwich is a great place INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL AVAILABLE PROPERTY COMPANIES INCORPORATED +44 to work – a beautiful city, BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 with a low cost of living.” -25 POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION SEAN CLARK ENTREPRENEUR, SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING CONSULTANT -44 FAST AND ACCESSIBLE BROADBAND SEANCLARK.COM

-133 GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

*Compared to the national average UK AVERAGE

54 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 55 Radcliffe Camera, Oxford “There are lots of startups across all sectors in Oxford, and an increasingly vibrant community – though it is not always easy to see from the outside.” DAVE FLETCHER CHAIR DIGITAL OXFORD

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE ACCESS TO TALENT AND VIBRANT NETWORK COMPANY PROFILES Oxford’s cluster identity is still at an early stage, with only 53% of companies claiming they are part of a digital cluster – the lowest proportion of any of the areas in this report. Those who do feel part of a cluster report a relatively vibrant social community, with strong access to talent, driven by the university, but limited benefts in OXFORD Founded 1991 terms of fnance or property. The fragmented nature of the local OmPrompt provides Customer AND OXFORDSHIRE community, which coalesces around the many diferent college Automation Management (CAM) institutes and groups rather than a single hub may contribute to this. services to many of the world’s largest manufacturers through its DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT A growing network of local developer and entrepreneur CLUSTER BENEFITS intelligent cloud. groups are emerging in this cluster. Success stories ACCESS TO TALENT ACCESS TO PROPERTY from the area include the high-profle acquisitions of ACCESS TO 21,970 SOCIAL NETWORKS NaturalMotion by Zynga and two university spin-outs, 65% 32% KEY SECTOR FOCUS* Dark Blue Labs and Vision Factory by Google. Founded 1969 • EDTECH Oxford has also shown strengths in big data and cyber Solid State Logic designs, • HEALTHTECH security through support from the Big Data Institute, the ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE manufactures and supplies worldwide • SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT Cyber Security Centre and the Global Cyber Security Capacity 79% analogue and digital sound mixing consoles for music recording studios, Programme. New strengths emerging include EdTech 29% 26% live music and theatrical performance, KEY CAPABILITIES* and HealthTech. A number of organisations have been TV broadcast and flm & television established to support the growing startup scene, including post-production. 1.2x MORE LIKELY TO SPECIALISE IN CYBER SECURITY Digital Health Oxford and Digital Oxford, which recently re-launched. Oxford Entrepreneurs, a student society based 1.1x MORE LIKELY TO SPECIALISE IN MOBILE AND in Saïd Business School claims to be the largest student FUELLING GROWTH TABLET DEVELOPMENT entrepeneurs society in the world. Venturefest also held its Founded 2008 TRANSPORT AND PROPERTY 1.1x MORE LIKELY TO 2014 innovation conference at the Saïd Business School. Incuna is a digital agency in the SPECIALISE IN SYSTEMS DESIGN Local academic centres of excellence include three Although Oxford has an outstanding reputation for academia, some healthcare sector, delivering web AND INTEGRATION science parks, the University of Oxford’s e-Research Centre, and mobile apps for pharmaceutical claim the region is in the early stages of promoting entrepreneurship. companies, global health projects and its long established Computer Science Department, and the Improved transport infrastructure, and afordable city-centre ofce the NHS. GROWTH OF COMPANIES Isis Innovation software incubator. space, are seen as key to fuel further growth by the local community. 24% STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL POSITIVE ECONOMIC CLIMATE +48 COMPANIES INCORPORATED “Our challenge is to better BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 FAST AND ACCESSIBLE BROADBAND +33 communicate the assets and opportunities in the AVAILABLE PROPERTY region to establish a more -36 dynamic investment ecosystem.” -48 POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION TONY HART OXFORDSHIRE LEP -78 GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

*Compared to the national average UK AVERAGE

56 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 57 Sheffield Peace Gardens “Where there is a critical mass of entrepreneurs and digital and creative people, you can create a Tech City- like cluster. We are starting to see this around Sheffield in particular.” LEE STRAFFORD CO-FOUNDER PLUSNET

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE WELL-ESTABLISHED, PAST SUCCESSES COMPANY PROFILES Two UK tech fotations of recent years; infrastructure software developer Servelec (£122 million) and distributed systems developer WANdisco (£15 million), originated in Shefeld. SHEFFIELD CLUSTER BENEFITS ACCESS TO PROPERTY ACCESS TO TALENT Founded 1996 INCLUDING SOUTH YORKSHIRE ACCESS TO Rare is an integrated marketing agency SOCIAL NETWORKS providing a broad range of clients with 53% 31% strategic marketing, creative design DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT Shefeld leads South Yorkshire’s digital sector, with and digital services. Its digital work encompasses website and mobile app smaller clusters based around Barnsley and Doncaster. ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE design, bespoke software tools, search 21,403 Companies in this region boast one of the highest rates of 53% marketing and digital communications. turnover growth (47%) of all UK regions, despite a lower % % KEY SECTOR FOCUS* rate of company creation. 19 11 • EDTECH The area is known for advanced manufacturing and • DATA MANAGEMENT tech-enabled professional services, such as intelligent call AND ANALYTICS centres and customer support. These growing tech sectors • TELECOMMUNICATIONS Founded 2013 AND NETWORKING build on Shefeld’s traditional strength in back-ofce Flowify is a tablet application for professional services. hospitality. Its personal assistant, Sofa, helps hotels and restaurants increase KEY CAPABILITIES* Shefeld’s digital community is active; 60% of companies FUELLING GROWTH revenue and reduce costs. surveyed report that they are part of a digital cluster, though 1.4x MORE LIKELY TO only 53% reported a strong network of entrepreneurs to POOR INFRASTRUCTURE, ATTRACTING TALENT SPECIALISE IN ARTIFICIAL share ideas and experiences with. There is a range of long- INTELLIGENCE standing industry and startup meet-ups, and e University While Shefeld is well connected to London, South Yorkshire in 1.3x MORE LIKELY TO ee runs quarterly startup weekends. This activity is general could beneft from enhanced connection to other Northern SPECIALISE IN MACHINE TO cities, as identifed by the Institute of Civil Engineers. The local Founded 2003 MACHINE COMMUNICATIONS supported by the Sheffield Digital Campus and Dotforge, a pre-seed accelerator established in 2012. university’s strong and growing reputation in technology needs to Sumo Digital develops gaming software 1.3x MORE LIKELY TO translate into attracting established talent. Other challenges include for all major console and handheld SPECIALISE IN NETWORK Sheffield has two universities, bringing about 65,000 platforms as well as mobile and tablet. INFRASTRUCTURE AND PROTOCOLS students to the city every year. e Universityee is access to public or private fnance and access to talent. world-class for computer science, while Sheffield Hallam has STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS GROWTH OF COMPANIES fully integrated its Arts, Computing, Engineering and “We’re attracting Sciences into a single facility, generating cross-disciplinary AVAILABLE PROPERTY +30 fantastically talented, 17% skills. ambitious startups from FAST AND ACCESSIBLE BROADBAND around the world to INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL +12 Dotforge. Sheffield is at a COMPANIES INCORPORATED tipping point, the cluster BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 -20 POSITIVE ECONOMIC CLIMATE needs a hub to really galvanise the community.” -45 GOOD TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE EMMA CHESHIRE CEO DOTFORGE ACCELERATOR -61 POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION

*Compared to the national average UK AVERAGE

58 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 59 Pierhead - National Assembly for Wales and The Millennium Centre, “Cardiff and Swansea have real strengths in media and sport for the digital technology sector to build around. We have the BBC and top-class football and rugby.” NEIL COCKER CO-FOUNDER

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF COMPANIES

KEY BENEFITS EXAMPLE ACCESS TO FINANCE AND PROPERTY COMPANY PROFILES A vibrant network of entrepreneurs to share ideas and experiences with was highlighted by 85% of companies. TechHub Swansea and the ICE centre have helped provide afordable, fexible property and a focal point around which social networks can form. Funds such as Business SOUTH WALES Wales’ Digital Development Fund and Cardif University’s Fusion IP partnership were mentioned by three quarters of companies as having INCLUDING CARDIFF AND SWANSEA helped with access to fnance, though funding remains a concern. Founded 2012 Pwinty provides an API (application CLUSTER BENEFITS programme interface) allowing users to order photo prints from within an DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT South Wales is emerging as a digital technology hub, with ACCESS TO PUBLIC FINANCE ACCESS TO PROPERTY application. It helps app creators to 60% of the companies surveyed citing that they are part ACCESS TO SOCIAL NETWORKS monetise its apps while driving customer 28,308 of a digital cluster. Most are based in Cardif and Swansea, % % satisfaction. and a number beneft from support from centres like the 75 60 KEY SECTOR FOCUS* Welsh ICE co-working space in Caerphilly. ACCESS TO PRIVATE FINANCE ACCESS TO TALENT • HEALTHTECH Small frms and startups dominate, with 87% of % • DATA MANAGEMENT companies employing fve people or fewer. These frms are 85 Founded 2013 AND ANALYTICS optimistic about the future, 98% expect to grow revenues • E-COMMERCE 60% 20% Landmax.pro is a cloud-based, one- next year. The startup scene in Cardif and Swansea spans stop solution for lettings and estate multiple sectors, including media and sport. However its agents which enables them to manage KEY CAPABILITIES* real potential may lie in health, with Wales’ status as a life accounts, maintenance, advertising and communication all in one place. 1.3x MORE LIKELY TO sciences hub a key strength. A number of travel technology SPECIALISE IN PAYMENTS and FinTech startups exist in Cardif, alongside an emerging FUELLING GROWTH INFRASTRUCTURE games cluster. 1.1x MORE LIKELY TO This is a growing sector supported by organisations such ATTRACTING TALENT SPECIALISE IN SYSTEMS DESIGN as Cardif Start, a tech startup network, and co-working Founded 2009 AND INTEGRATION Attracting skilled workers continues to be a challenge for the region, spaces like FoundersHub, Indycube, GloWorks and TechHub despite the presence of fve local universities. Local policymakers Dizzyjam is an E-commerce platform 1.1x MORE LIKELY TO Swansea, and industry groups such as Unifed Dif, Cardif for selling products to a community or SPECIALISE IN ARTIFICIAL and cluster leaders are seeking to address this through public funding fanbase. Its bespoke tools enable users INTELLIGENCE & Swansea Start, Games Dev South Wales and Digital 2015. schemes and a growing range of networking opportunities, such as Jobs to monetise massive vertical markets. The Alacrity foundation in Newport helps graduates set up Growth Wales and a pilot for a software university currently running. GROWTH OF COMPANIES high-tech enterprises. Local startups include health app Nudjed and photo printing API Pwinty. STRENGTH OF GROWTH DRIVERS POSITIVE ECONOMIC CLIMATE 87% +59 “It’s a really diverse sector. There’s a strong INCREASE IN NEW DIGITAL AVAILABLE PROPERTY COMPANIES INCORPORATED +40 HealthTech community BETWEEN 2010 AND 2013 that works with the -26 ACCESS TO ADVICE AND MENTORSHIP BioTech companies we have here, but also lots of data companies -36 POSITIVE PERCEPTION OF REGION and E-commerce.” GARETH JONES -56 ACCESS TO FINANCE CEO WELSH ICE

*Compared to the national average UK AVERAGE

60 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 61 River Tay and Dundee “The Cloisters” below the Bute Hall, Glasgow University

DUNDEE GLASGOW

DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT Dundee’s digital technology sector has been driven by a Glasgow has long been a centre for innovation, including DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT thriving games industry. The city’s digital tech businesses in digital technology. The University of Strathclyde have produced several hit video games, including the provides a reliable pool of computer science graduates and 3,808 frst of the Grand Theft Auto series (DMA Designs, now labour costs are typically lower than London, making it an 19,282 Rockstar North) and the Championship Manager Series attractive location for startups. The University of Glasgow 2013-2020 GROWTH (Dynamo Games). Last year the city hosted the NEoN and Glasgow School of Art are also producing talent well- 2013-2020 GROWTH digital arts festival, while the Dundee Design Museum suited to local tech companies. welcomed its frst games designer in residence. There are a number of networking forums, such as 2.28% The strength of this sector has been underpinned the RookieOven meet-up for startups. The city currently 3.34% by signifcant investment in education. In 2009 the UK lacks a network of incubators and accelerators to support Government invested £2.5 million in a video game centre the startup community, but there are plans to open the at Abertay University, the frst university in the world to RookieOven Space in 2015. ofer a course in computer video gaming engineering. This Glasgow has already produced well known digital investment has continued with the set-up of IDEAScotland innovators, including Insignia Technologies (“smart” (a collaboration of Brightsolid, DC Thomson, e packaging, with pigments to identify expired food) and University University of Dundee) which will support design agency Snook (apps to deliver feedback to local police startups in the digital, technology and creative media forces). Others include Insurance by Jack, innovating how sectors in Dundee and more broadly. small businesses buy insurance, and Farm Geek, which is developing business management software for farmers. The city was recently awarded a £24 million ‘smart cities’ grant from the UK Government, to help integrate digital technology further into the fabric of the city and provide opportunities for digital tech businesses in the future, including helping to develop the support framework required to help the cluster grow. Local startup Dynamically Loaded is supporting this through its innovative personal data store platform.

62 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 63 Priory Church, Great Malvern City Square, Leeds

GREAT MALVERN LEEDS INCLUDING WORCESTERSHIRE

DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT The Great Malvern cluster focuses primarily on cyber Leeds has a strong digital technology sector, specialising DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT security and includes around 80 small companies.* Many in data analytics and management which underpins began their origins as spinouts from QinetiQ, the privatised strengths across health analytics, data science and 9,353 arm of the Government’s Defence Evaluation and Research technology and FinTech. 44,951 Agency, which has a large operation in the town. The close The city has one of the highest concentrations of health 2013-2020 GROWTH proximity of GCHQ in Cheltenham and the Special Air informatics professionals globally with frms such as EMIS 2013-2020 GROWTH Services (SAS) in Hereford has made the area a magnet for and TPP. The National Consumer Data Research Centre at professionals with specialist cyber security skills. the University of Leeds, and frms such as Asda contribute to 0.7% The majority of small cyber security companies in Malvern this cluster’s specialism in data. 7.28% are located at the Wyche Innovation Centre. However, Leeds is also a major centre for fnancial services, the core companies within the cluster are located across home of the internet bank First Direct, and this, alongside Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. Key IQ digital strengths, means the city is well placed to take Ltd runs a co-working space and helps the area’s 80+ cyber advantage of opportunities in FinTech. security companies network and collaborate. Companies The cluster includes a number of the digital operations cooperate on a range of initiatives to encourage growth, of major corporates such as Sky (Leeds is the home of improve the cyber security of local enterprises, and also raise SkyBet), NHS (hosting the NHS Data Spine), Pace, Echostar awareness of cyber security amongst young people. Telecommunications and Rockstar (developers of a number The area in and around Malvern, dubbed ‘Cyber Valley’ of the Grand Theft Auto series). is now recognised as a growing centre in the UK for the Leeds’ startup community is beginning to galvanise research, development and commercialisation of cyber through Lean Startup Yorkshire, Leeds Hack, the Leeds security products and services. Data Mill (the city’s open data platform) and the Advanced Digital Institute in nearby Saltaire (Bradford). Also, physical spaces like RoundFoundry and Duke Studios are housing growing startups and creative companies. Opportunities for collaboration have been boosted through the IP Exchange group iXLeeds, the recent launch of a Digital Catapult centre in Bradford, the Open Data Institute Node and the enterprise * There are a further 13 cyber clusters in existence or soon to be launched across the UK, following the lead of the fourishing Malvern cluster. This includes Bath; Cambridge; Exeter; investment made by Universityee. London; Kent; North East (Tyne & Wear); Northern Ireland (Belfast); South Wales (Cardif); Sussex (Brighton); Solent (Southampton); Thames Valley (Reading).

64 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 65 The Blade Building, Reading

PROFILING DIGITAL SECTORS READING INCLUDING BERKSHIRE

DIGITAL EMPLOYMENT Located at the heart of UK’s traditional enterprise and science tech belt, Reading has a strong history in digital technology. According to KPMG, Reading is the UK’s 54,527 number one local authority digital cluster in the UK (almost one-in-fve enterprises are tech frms) and the 2013-2020 GROWTH proportion of tech enterprises in Reading is three times the national average. 5.3% Reading is home to some of the world’s biggest technology companies including Oracle, Microsoft, As well as understanding where the UK’s digital companies are Symantec, Huawei and Nvidia and the UK’s pioneering Big growing by geographical location, Tech Nation seeks to showcase Data startup, DataSift, which is based at the enterprise the sectors these companies are excelling in. We want to highlight centre in the University of Reading (UoR). The UoR is home the capabilities and specialisms that are at the beating heart of to many science-based specialisms, including climate change the UK digital economy. and satellite imaging, and has just received funding for a In this section we examine eleven key sectors, and noted which multi-million pound environmental “Big Data” centre. companies in our survey identifed as being refective of their The startup scene is currently being re-energised by business activities: ConnectTVT, which has opened an innovation hub and co- working space. There are also plans to build a lab and space 68 Advertising and marketing 74 HealthTech to be shared with an accelerator in 2015. Early stages indicate 69 Data management 75 Marketplace and and analytics lead generation Big Data, Open Data and Internet of Things (IoT) as particular 70 E-commerce 76 Media and entertainment areas of expertise and a focus on business tech innovation. 71 EdTech 77 Software development 72 FinTech 78 Telecommunications 73 Games development and networking and publishing We also looked at the capabilities that are likely to be critical to each of these sectors, and noted the clusters where there is a growing sector specialism.

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ADVERTISING SAID REVENUES SAID REVENUES DATA MANAGEMENT 72% GREW LAST YEAR 67% GREW LAST YEAR SAID REVENUES GREW SAID REVENUES GREW AND MARKETING 33% BY MORE THAN 25% 37% BY MORE THAN 25% AND ANALYTICS

Built on the UK’s historic strength as a creative nation, NOTABLE CLUSTERS NOTABLE CLUSTERS Data management and analytics includes a wide range of this sector, along with media and entertainment, makes • Brighton • Belfast companies with many working horizontally across other up one of the two largest sectors of the digital economy. sectors. As such, a number of these companies categorized 11% of survey respondents described advertising and • Bournemouth • Bristol & Bath themselves within other sectors (e.g. HealthTech, because marketing as the sector that best described their business. • Cambridge • Cambridge the business specialises in data management for health This includes a wide range of professional services • Hull • Inner London organisations). These businesses have core expertise in agencies providing SEO, social media analytics, app • Inner London • Sheffield data storage and unlocking insights through quantitative development and real-time advertising. intelligence. ‘Big Data’ is driving trends in this sector, with We found thriving communities across the UK, with this • Norwich • South Wales companies growing rapidly. sector mapping closely to traditional marketing strongholds, The sector needs highly skilled talent, employing a higher such as Inner London, Brighton and Bournemouth. We KEY CAPABILITIES KEY CAPABILITIES percentage of PhD and Masters-level employees compared also found a high number of advertising and marketing Capabilities and skills driving Capabilities and skills driving with other digital sectors. This refects the need for a strong companies in Hull and Cambridge. In certain cases, this sector include: this sector include: range of technical skills around AI, advanced data analysis, companies have chosen to cluster around certain locations in • Artificial intelligence and machine learning. Support from local universities is order to be near universities that produce strong graduates; • Digital marketing therefore crucial with these frms more likely to locate or close to business clients. Some respondents cited better • Content and media production • Data science themselves near educational institutions to take advantage quality of life as a key factor (particularly in the case of places • Visual and audio design • Machine learning of research developments and a thriving talent pool. Leading such as Brighton and Bournemouth). • UI and UX design • Cloud computing/SaaS/ clusters in this sector include Inner London, Bristol & Bath, Web services South Wales, Shefeld, Cambridge and Belfast, with a POINTS OF INTEREST • Mobile and tablet development number of cross-sector companies found across the UK. • Machine to machine • 83% said they traded or partnered with other members communications of their cluster PRIMARY NEED POINTS OF INTEREST • 62% said that local quality of life was a key reason for PRIMARY NEED • 1.5x more likely to have sought private fnancial support company location – more than any other sector 40% • 1.5x more likely to consider masters and PhD said focus on local skills 37% programmes as key to building skills said improved access to finance EXAMPLE COMPANY PROFILES EXAMPLE COMPANY PROFILES

BRIGHTON AND HOVE CAMBRIDGE EDINBURGH BRIGHTON AND HOVE FOUNDED 2003 FOUNDED 2008 FOUNDED 2008 FOUNDED 2009 Leapfrogg is a retail marketing Onespacemedia is a digital creative SoDash/Winterwell helps Trackpal provides fully automated agency specialising in the premium/ agency that provides elegant, cost- organisations deliver excellent and reporting designed for digital luxury sector. It helps its clients craft efective services to an international efcient customer service via social marketing professionals that makes game-changing digital experiences client base. It specialises in strategy- media, using software based on data- the regular process of weekly and to increase loyalty, proftability and inspired web development. science and big-data analytics. monthly data performance reporting market share. more proftable.

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SAID REVENUES SAID REVENUES 71% GREW LAST YEAR 55% GREW LAST YEAR SAID REVENUES GREW SAID REVENUES GREW E-COMMERCE 55% BY MORE THAN 25% 36% BY MORE THAN 25% EDTECH

E-commerce includes businesses selling physical and NOTABLE CLUSTERS NOTABLE CLUSTERS Educational Technology (EdTech) – using technology digital goods directly to consumers and businesses, or • Bournemouth • Birmingham to improve learning – includes companies developing providing the platforms and infrastructure to enable those hardware (e.g. interactive whiteboards), software transactions. Looking broadly at this sector, and including • Greater Manchester • Bristol & Bath platforms (e.g. virtual learning environments), learning all related activity by companies, E-commerce is clearly • Inner London • Edinburgh apps (e.g. a language learning app) and digital content. an integral part of the UK economy. Indeed, according • Sheffield • Inner London Business opportunity extends well beyond the UK to the ONS, in 2013, a ffth of UK business turnover was • South Wales • Oxford because English is a key language for e-learning globally. The generated by E-commerce sales1 and in 2014, UK nationals fnance community is investing heavily – from private equity spent £54 billion online (16.5% of global spend).2 • Sheffield companies and VCs, to world leaders like Pearson. The emergence of prominent E-commerce companies KEY CAPABILITIES • South Wales Organisations like The Education Foundation are helping is one of the UK’s big economic success stories. The likes Capabilities and skills driving to support the growth of the sector, through initiatives like of AO.com, notonthehighstreet.com and MADE.com have this sector include: KEY CAPABILITIES the EdTech Incubator. Shefeld and Oxford are both cited seen signifcant growth, while ASOS.com has become one of • Payments infrastructure Capabilities and skills driving as having strengths in EdTech, with EdTech frms clustering the world’s leading global clothing E-commerce businesses. this sector include: around Oxford’s publishers in particular. Birmingham and Distance selling regulations, the early adoption of innovative • Cyber security Edinburgh also have a growing expertise in this sector. payment methods, and logistical efciencies have • Digital marketing • Computer simulation contributed to the UK’s position as a leading E-commerce • Software engineering • Content and media production POINTS OF INTEREST powerhouse. E-commerce companies are prominent in • Data science • Visual and audio design • 57% have sought advice on business and marketing Greater Manchester, South Wales, Bournemouth and Inner skills – more than any other sector London, with distribution centres located in • Data science • 2x as likely as other businesses to have used tech- and Shefeld. PRIMARY NEED • UI and UX design focused education specialists to build skills POINTS OF INTEREST 52% PRIMARY NEED • 1.5x as likely as other companies to consider local said improved access to finance university support a reason for their location 54% said improved access to finance EXAMPLE COMPANY PROFILES EXAMPLE COMPANY PROFILES

NORTH EAST LEEDS FOUNDED 2007 FOUNDED 2007 GREATER LONDON BOURNEMOUTH AND POOLE The Test Factory provides online Sonocent is a new form of note-taking FOUNDED 2007 FOUNDED 2004 assessment solutions to corporate based on annotating visualised SecretSales.com is a fashion Folk Digital are thinkers, storytellers, and education clients. Its technology audio. It has a desktop product fash sales business, which allows designers and developers ofering and platform help clients deliver Audio Notetaker as well as a phone/ consumers to access sales from over digital leadership to luxury brands 1 www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/rdit2/e-commerce-and- sophisticated online tests in over 20 tablet companion product Sonocent internet-use/e-commerce-and-internet-use--2013/ 1500 brands on a range of categories through purposeful storytelling, sty-ecom-2013.html languages worldwide each month, to Recorder. including fashion, accessories, beauty future-proof E-commerce and 2 blog.payoneer.com/in-2015-ecommerce-sales-will- support learning, accreditation and and homeware. intelligent innovation. reach-1-592-trillion/#sthash.aQ2RCC7f.dpuf recruitment.

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SAID REVENUES SAID REVENUES GAMES DEVELOPMENT 88% GREW LAST YEAR 45% GREW LAST YEAR SAID REVENUES GREW SAID REVENUES GREW FINTECH 64% BY MORE THAN 25% 30% BY MORE THAN 25% AND PUBLISHING

Financial clusters have grown up around the UK’s existing NOTABLE CLUSTERS NOTABLE CLUSTERS The UK has a strong competitive advantage in the games international fnance hubs of London and Edinburgh. • Belfast • Belfast industry which dates back to the 1980s. Nesta estimates This is a rapidly growing sector for the UK, worth around this sector contributes £1.7 billion to the UK economy. £2 billion annually. • Cardiff • Birmingham Games development and publishing includes businesses FinTech is establishing a presence in Leeds, the second • Edinburgh • Bournemouth developing and distributing games across a number of largest centre for banking outside London, and Belfast – the • Greater Manchester • Brighton platforms like consoles, PCs and mobile and tablet devices. number one destination for fnancial technology research • Inner London • Bristol & Bath Investment by major console developers (e.g. Sony, and development investments (according to UKTI). Cardif, Microsoft, Nintendo) and publishers (EA, Activision etc.) has Greater Manchester, and Birmingham also have growing • Leeds • Dundee been a key driver, with independent UK games companies expertise, supported by the presence of key banks and • Hull acquired by major US and international businesses (e.g. fnancial institutions. KEY CAPABILITIES • Liverpool Psygnosis in Liverpool being purchased by Sony, Rare by According to EY, the UK’s growing strengths in FinTech Capabilities and skills driving • North East Microsoft, etc). are due to the presence of a large and technologically this sector include: The growth of iOS and tablet gaming, as well as platforms sophisticated customer base; good availability of business such as Steam and XBLA have enabled smaller, ‘indie’ capital; and excellent fnancial services infrastructure. • Payments infrastructure KEY CAPABILITIES studios to emerge, requiring less upfront fnancial support Government policy has also been a driver for growth with • Cyber security Capabilities and skills driving from publishers – but access to fnance is a key issue for new government supporting initiatives like Innovate Finance and • Machine learning this sector include: studios as even simple games can require months or years of Project Innovate (a programme of the Financial Conduct • Data science • Computer simulation work before launch. Authority supporting FinTech). • Software engineering • Artificial intelligence POINTS OF INTEREST POINTS OF INTEREST • Mobile and tablet development • 2x as likely to declare local sector expertise to be a key • 1.8x more likely to cite access to fnance, and PRIMARY NEED • Content and media production reason for location 1.6x more likely to cite support from local universities • Visual and audio design • 1.4x as likely to develop skills through local masters as drivers of location 51% and PhD courses • More than twice as likely as other companies to have said better access to talent PRIMARY NEED sought private fnance in the past year

EXAMPLE COMPANY PROFILES 49% EXAMPLE COMPANY PROFILES said improved access to finance

BRIGHTON AND HOVE BOURNEMOUTH AND POOLE INNER LONDON EDINBURGH FOUNDED 2005 FOUNDED 1998 FOUNDED 2005 FOUNDED 2011 Mediatonic creates original games Amuzo is a casual game developer Small World FS provides a trusted, miiCard (My Internet Identity) that connect millions of players across specialising in the creation of web and simple and low-cost way for allows individuals and businesses the globe. Its UK studios are focused smart device games. Amuzo titles consumers and businesses to send to confrm an online identity that on IP for digital platforms and have been played more than three money to 190 countries worldwide. eliminates fraud, removes barriers to live services. quarters of a billion times and have new customer acquisition and reduces 1 www.nesta.org.uk/publications/ reached #1 on the App Store in operational costs. map-uk-games-industry 147 countries.

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SAID REVENUES SAID REVENUES MARKETPLACE AND 56% GREW LAST YEAR 59% GREW LAST YEAR SAID REVENUES GREW SAID REVENUES GREW HEALTHTECH 42% BY MORE THAN 25% 41% BY MORE THAN 25% LEAD GENERATION

Companies are engaged in developing digital solutions to NOTABLE CLUSTERS NOTABLE CLUSTERS Marketplace and lead generation businesses are marketing- improve the health of individuals, from life tracking apps • Birmingham • Birmingham led companies that take advantage of the skill sets of digital and hospital management software to digitally driven advertising. They focus on helping buyers and sellers fnd each healthcare devices. 4% of survey respondents described • Cambridge • Greater Manchester other online, providing services such as classifed ads, price HealthTech as the sector that best described their • Inner London • Inner London comparison and audience retargeting. business. • Oxford • South Wales This is an emerging area of digital innovation, with frms using Success has been driven by the strength of the research • North East afliate relationships and new programmatic trading techniques to community and its integration with the commercial KEY CAPABILITIES reach and target consumers. Notable examples include Quidco.com, market. Notable examples are London for life sciences and • South Wales which leverages existing afliate programs by major online retailers Cambridge in biotechnology. Expertise can also be found Capabilities and skills driving to reward consumers, and MoneySuperMarket.com, one of the UK’s in Oxford, Birmingham, the North East and South Wales, KEY CAPABILITIES this sector include: most sophisticated companies for retargeting and RTB (real-time where the has launched a number of Capabilities and skills driving • Digital marketing bidding) advertising techniques. HealthTech funds. this sector include: • Content and media production There is a high concentration of these frms in Wales, HealthTech companies told us that improving access to which has a number of success stories with GoCompare.com, fnance is key to enabling growth in the sector. Government • Machine learning • UI and UX design MoneySuperMarket.com and Confused.com. A growing expertise initiatives include the Integrated Digital Care Fund, which • Hardware development • Cloud computing/SaaS/ can also be found in Birmingham and Greater Manchester. provided over £500 million. • Artificial intelligence Web services • Software engineering POINTS OF INTEREST POINTS OF INTEREST • Data science • Machine to machine • 95% of businesses expect to grow their turnover next year • 95% of HealthTech businesses expect to grow their communications PRIMARY NEED • 70% most likely to have sought mentoring from turnover next year experienced entrepreneurs • 2x as likely to have sought space in an accelerator PRIMARY NEED and 1.5x as likely to have sought mentoring as 49% said improved access to finance other companies 58% said improved access to finance

EXAMPLE COMPANY PROFILES EXAMPLE COMPANY PROFILES

INNER LONDON BOURNEMOUTH AND POOLE GREATER LONDON INNER LONDON FOUNDED 2010 FOUNDED 2011 FOUNDED 2012 FOUNDED 2009 Big Health uses tracked data to create Nourish enables better joint health Hassle.com is an online marketplace Housetrip is a holiday rental website personalised behavioural medicine and social care for older people by that matches busy professionals with that makes booking a holiday home programmes, delivered via web and making care management more local trusted cleaners for the home. as easy as a hotel, with over 300,000 mobile. Its frst product Sleepio helps efective, and reassuring loved ones It allows people to fnd, book and holiday apartments, villas, cottages patients overcome long-term who are kept in the loop. pay for a cleaner’s time via its and chalets, in 19,000 destinations. poor sleep. online platform.

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MEDIA AND SAID REVENUES SAID REVENUES SOFTWARE 53% GREW LAST YEAR 68% GREW LAST YEAR SAID REVENUES GREW SAID REVENUES GREW ENTERTAINMENT 25% BY MORE THAN 25% 37% BY MORE THAN 25% DEVELOPMENT

Media and entertainment has traditionally been a source NOTABLE CLUSTERS NOTABLE CLUSTERS Software development was highlighted by 22% of of strength within the UK and 11% of survey respondents • Birmingham • Belfast survey respondents as the sector that best described selected it as the sector that best described their business. their business. This is an umbrella category that These companies use a broad array of digital skills to • Bristol & Bath • Brighton includes organisations developing software applications create, promote and distribute media products, ranging • Greater Manchester • Bristol & Bath for consumers, software for devices ranging from from online video delivery to ebook publishing. Of all the • Inner London • Cambridge smartphones and tablets to TV set top boxes, as well as sectors identifed within our report, companies in media • Sheffield • Edinburgh enterprise applications. This sector sits at the heart of our and entertainment were most likely to claim that they digital economy. traded or partnered with other members of their cluster • South Wales • Inner London While hardware innovation continues to attract a lot (82% of respondents). • North East of attention, the last decade has seen unprecedented In addition to London’s position as a world-leading KEY CAPABILITIES • Oxford innovation in software development, from cloud computing news and entertainment hub, clusters can also be found Capabilities and skills driving to front-end app development. throughout the country particularly where major media this sector include: KEY CAPABILITIES Software development is a core strength in Northern and production corporates have a strong presence. This Ireland and the North East, with companies 1.7 times more includes Greater Manchester, home to the oldest television • Content and media production Capabilities and skills driving likely to work in this sector compared to the UK average. studios in the UK, and major hubs for both ITV and the BBC; • Visual and audio design this sector include: There is also a strong presence of software development and South Wales, where the BBC, , local independent • Digital marketing • Software engineering companies in Brighton, Bristol & Bath, Inner London, production companies and Pinewood Studio Wales (opening • Computer simulation • Machine to machine Oxfordshire and Edinburgh. in 2015) provide opportunities for digital in broadcasting. communications There is also a growing sector in digital media production in • UI and UX design POINTS OF INTEREST • Systems design and integration Birmingham, Bristol & Bath and Shefeld. • Mobile and tablet development • 76% said that self-taught programming knowledge PRIMARY NEED was key to building their business – more than any POINTS OF INTEREST • Cloud computing/SaaS/ other sector • 62% cited local quality of life as a key reason for 37% Web services company location – more than any other sector said improved economic climate • 69% employed fve people or less, more than any PRIMARY NEED EXAMPLE COMPANY PROFILES other sector 42% EXAMPLE COMPANY PROFILES said focus on local skills LIVERPOOL BRISTOL & BATH FOUNDED 2013 FOUNDED 2008 Elite Sport Technologies Limited SimpleWeb is a software developer (Globall Coach) is the software which builds SaaS and mobile NORTHERN IRELAND SHEFFIELD company behind the Globall Coach products, using small internal teams FOUNDED 2014 FOUNDED 2001 brand. Globall Coach provides sport’s consisting of front and back-end Infyte is a music B2B promotion ZOO Digital is a provider of best coaches with the technology developers, strategists and UI/UX platform that allows businesses to cloud-based media production to plan, organise and collaborate designers. send branded digital music promo services and software to global on training sessions digitally and in campaigns direct to its clients’ creative organisations, mainly in the a fraction of the time taken using mobile devices for feedback. entertainment industry. traditional methods.

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS SAID REVENUES 69% GREW LAST YEAR SAID REVENUES GREW AND NETWORKING 20% BY MORE THAN 25%

From smartphone components to Wi-Fi networks, NOTABLE CLUSTERS switches, and routers, telecommunications and • Cambridge networking companies develop and sell the hardware and software that carries digital content and services. • Glasgow The companies in this sector are primarily made up of • Greater Manchester large multinationals (e.g. BT, Vodafone). But a number • Inner London of smaller companies are playing a key role in providing • Norwich broadband to city centre locations, including Optimity in London, Kingston Communications in Hull, Telcom in • Sheffield Manchester and Glasgow, Fusion Wif in Bournemouth and Aimes Grid Services in Liverpool. KEY CAPABILITIES Cambridge is renowned for its role in developing wireless Capabilities and skills driving communications, with well known strengths in mobile and this sector include: devices, while Reading has been the traditional heartland for companies such as Huawei, Oracle and Vodafone. Other • Network infrastructure areas where expertise is growing include Bristol & Bath and protocols and Shefeld. • Cyber security • Machine to machine POINTS OF INTEREST communications • 89% reported that strong technical infrastructure • Firmware and OS development was a key reason for their location – more than • Computer simulation any other sector • 63% most likely to consider local customers to be a PRIMARY NEED major beneft of cluster membership 64% said access to technical infrastruture to operate through EXAMPLE COMPANY PROFILES

INNER LONDON NORTH EAST FOUNDED 2008 FOUNDED 2013 Optimity supplies fast broadband Rymote provides a network connections to fast-growth businesses, optimisation service and brokers using a pioneering wireless technology business applications via the cloud, that avoids the need to install helping businesses access the latest in fbre optics. innovative software.

78 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 79 DATA SOURCES Development, Amuzo Games Four main sources was used to collate data for the • Soraya Jones, CEO, Cambridge Wireless DEFINING A DIGITAL Tech Nation report: • Stewart McTavish, Founding Director, For the Tech Nation project, we frst needed to Idea Space 1 TECH NATION SURVEY defne a “digital technology company”, as distinct • Professor William Webb, CEO, Weightless SIG completed by over 2,000 companies from a more generic “technology company”. • John Connolly, Co-Founder, C4DI This goal presented a number of challenges. 2 INTERVIEWS • Sarah Cinch, Business Development Manager, Many companies today use digital channels for with 43 digital technology experts LEP in Humber METHODOLOGY buying, selling and exchanging information. This, from across the UK • Dominic Gibbons, Managing Director, however, does not mean that the company is 3 EMPLOYMENT DATA Wykeland Group intrinsically digital. A restaurant with a website is collated by CareerBuilder • Jon Moss, Founder, Hull Digital not a digital technology company, while a site that 4 TECH NATION INTERACTIVE GUIDE • Olly Headey, CTO, FreeAgent enables its customers to order from restaurants compiled by DueDil • Andy Murray, Recruitment Executive, FanDuel all over the city is. Equally, many companies are • John Peebles, CEO, Administrate evolving from a legacy to a digital model. At what 1 TECH NATION SURVEY • Nick Sturge, Centre Director, Engine Shed stage do such companies become “digital”, if For the purposes of gathering qualitative (& SETsquared) indeed they ever do? These were some of the frst data for the Tech Nation report, we developed a • Simon Bond, Innovation Director, SETsquared questions that we had to consider. survey and garnered over 2,000 responses from • Bonnie Dean, Director, Bristol & Bath We started with a broad defnition: “any digital companies. Via the survey we wanted to Science Park company whose primary capability is producing understand: • Paul McCaferty, COO and Co-Founder, software or delivering software-enabled hardware”. • Do clusters have specialisms? Just One Database In the initial scoping period, this was expanded • What are their strengths and where is the • Doug Ward, Co-Founder, Tech Britain to include the agreed primary characteristics of a opportunity? • David Slater, Director of International digital technology company: • What are the challenges that we need to Business Development, London & Partners • Provides a software or frmware-based address to encourage further growth? • James Layfeld, CEO, Central Working product or service as its primary business or More than 2,000 companies meeting our • Kevin McManus, Head of Creative & Digital • Primarily operates over a digital platform, defnition of a digital company completed (Investment), ACME/Liverpool Vision such as applications or websites or the survey. • James Duez, Non-Executive Director, Tech City UK undertook this original research • Produces hardware products that directly 2 INTERVIEWS White Space Ltd. to understand and reveal digital capabilities enable software-driven devices We then interviewed 43 representatives from • Paul Greyner, Director, Naked Element across the country. The project was initiated in • We have excluded the following three the digital technology community to glean their Limited (and Founder Norfolk Developers) early 2014 with the objective of determining the categories of company from our defnition: insights (these interviewees came from across • Sean Clark, Search & Social Media Marketing reach and impact of the UK’s digital economy, – Manufacturing and industrial technology the UK and were a mixture of entrepreneurs, Consultant, SeanClark.com beginning with a focus on concentrations of UK companies LEP and council members, startup founders, • Steve Orr, Director, Northern Ireland Science digital companies and their business activities. – Companies that support the digital accelerator leaders, community leaders, along Park’s CONNECT Programme Tech Nation is the frst time a community-driven technology sector (e.g. incubators, venture with leaders of both public sector and private • David Dunn, CEO, Sunderland Software City project of this scale has ever been attempted in the capital funds) sector organisations). • Paul Smith, Co-Founder & CEO, Ignite UK. It has three broad objectives: – Companies that use digital as a channel Thanks to the following for their participation: • Dave Fletcher, Chair, Digital Oxford 1 To understand the location of the UK’s for their primarily ofine business (e.g. a • Phil Jones, Managing Director, Wired Sussex • Neil Cocker, Co-Founder, Cardif Start digital technology companies restaurant with a website) • Anna Lewis, Founder, Valobox • Gareth Jones, CEO, Welsh Innovation Centre 2 To assess the technology capabilities, sector Only UK-registered companies with accounts • Simon Jenner, Chief Entrepreneur, for Enterprise expertise and benefts of each of the UK’s fled at Companies House are included within Oxygen Accelerator • Lee Straford, Co-Founder, Plusnet digital technology clusters Tech Nation. Sole traders are not included. The • Katie Judge, Senior Regeneration Ofcer, • Emma Cheshire, CEO, Dotforge Accelerator 3 To inform policy, investment, and majority of the companies covered were small Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council • Leanne Buchan, Partnerships Lead collaboration eforts and medium enterprises and microbusinesses, • Dave Maclean, Managing Director, (Secondment), Leeds Data Mill No project can claim to ofer defnitive, complete which make up 99% of UK businesses (and 98% of Packt Publishing • James Clark, Policy Manager, BVCA coverage; the digital economy is too fast-moving digital technology companies). According to the • James Burkmar, Entrepreneur • Fredi Nonyelu, CEO, Briteyellow for that. However, armed with the insights derived UK Government, the usual defnition of small and • Matt Desmier, Creative & Digital Consultant, • Mark Lumley, Partner, Head of Commercial, from Tech Nation, it is our hope that future debate medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is any business Wise Old Uncle Shulmans LLP and policy-setting around the UK’s digital sector with fewer than 250 employees. Micro-businesses • Tom Quay, Managing Director, Base • Jim Sims, Development Manager, BTVLEP can be informed by soundly sourced evidence. are businesses with 0-9 employees. • Mike Hawkyard, Head of Business

80 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 81 3 EMPLOYMENT DATA 2426 Business and Related Research Professionals 4 TECH NATION INTERACTIVE GUIDE We next extracted keywords from our core data To better understand the change in digital 2473 Advertising accounts managers and creative As well as the Tech Nation report, we have built sources. (Within unstructured text, we applied jobs, we studied industries (using the Standard directors an accompanying interactive online guide which natural language processing to identify candidate Industrial Classifcation (SIC)) and occupations 3112 Electrical and Electronics Technicians maps the location and capabilities of roughly keywords.) (using Standard Occupational Classifcation 3131 IT operations technicians 47,900 digital companies across the UK. For We then conducted a classifcation exercise (SOC)), that rely heavily on digital technology, 3132 IT user support technicians the interactive guide, we collaborated with our in which 2,000 companies were independently and their change across various cluster regions 3421 Graphic designers partner DueDil to build the Tech Nation website tagged by project partners as digital, non-digital or (as defned by the Nomenclature of Territorial 3416 Arts ofcers, producers and directors www.duedil.com/technation/2015. We mapped ambiguous candidates. The results of this exercise Units for Statistics (NUTS)). Total jobs across all 3417 Photographers, audio-visual and broadcasting a number of the digital companies across the UK, were used to create a machine-learning training set. equipment operators industries and occupations served as a benchmark using data from diferent sources including the (The training set was tested against 500 non-digital 7214 Communication operators for much of the research. Companies House database of limited companies, companies.) 5242 Telecommunications engineers We provide job numbers from 2013 and data from partners including Crunchbase This training set was then used to identify 5244 TV, video and audio engineers projections from 2014 to 2020. and AngelList, and data from the websites of “digital” companies from among the wider universe 5245 IT engineers Data presented for the selected industries digital companies. These companies were then of UK-registered companies, using the data sources and occupations for Great Britain is based on For Northern Ireland, data was sourced from the categorised into UK NUTS 3 regions, in order to outlined above. CareerBuilder and EMSI information, sourced from Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency understand the geographic profle of UK digital As a verifcation stage, crowdsourcing was used the following: from the Department of Finance and Personnel. technology companies. to identify and remove anomalous companies. • Business Register Employment Survey (BRES) The SOC codes used in this analysis: Where available we have also captured data on Within this stage, and to ensure we had no poor- • Workforce Jobs Series (WJS) 1136 Information technology and the incorporation date. There are caveats to this performing assessors, we asked multiple people to • Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) telecommunications directors data: many companies are too small to submit full tag individual entities. • Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2133 IT specialist managers accounts to Companies House, and our formation Finally, a keyword-clustering stage was • Annual Population Survey (APS) 2134 IT project and programme managers data does not include those companies that are no implemented to enrich the keyword database. • Working Futures (WF) 2123 Electrical engineers longer active. This fnal database was used to show the • Mid-Year Population Estimates 2124 Electronics engineers Working with these parameters, we drew on companies within Tech Nation, and their location • Subnational Population Projections 2126 Design and development engineers seven main data sources: (based on registered and trading address, where • Annual Business Inquiry (ABI) 2127 Production and process engineers 1 First, we used the 2003 and 2007 Standard available). Employment data for Great Britain in this report 2134 IT project and programme managers; Industrial Classifcation of Economic Activities was provided by CareerBuilder in conjunction 2135 IT business analysts, architects and systems (SIC) system to include companies that self- GEOGRAPHICAL CLUSTERS designers with Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. (EMSI), identify as “digital”: Regional areas with a concentrated survey 2136 Programmers and software development a CareerBuilder company specializing in labour – 7221 (2003) Publishing of software response of over 30 companies were profled for professionals market analysis. – 3002 Manufacture computers and process this report. In addition, we also included four 2137 Web design and development professionals We looked at growth and employment of equipment additional clusters based on our knowledge of 2139 Information technology and digitally enabled occupations. Using SOC, this – 5821 (2007) Publishing of computer games the tech communities that exist there (Leeds, telecommunications professionals n.e.c. approach takes into account the number of jobs, – 5829 Other software publishing Dundee, Glasgow and Reading). This is not an 3131 IT operations technicians regardless of industry. – 62011 Ready-made interactive leisure and exhaustive analysis of all the digital tech clusters 3132 IT user support technicians Digital occupations are defned by a selection of entertainment software development that exist across the UK (noteworthy absentees 3421 Graphic designers Standard Occupation Codes (SOC). Below are the – 62012 Business and domestic include Aberdeen and Coventry). 3416 Arts ofcers, producers and directors SOCs used in the analysis: software development These regional areas were then defned by NUTs 3417 Photographers, audio-visual and broadcasting 1136 Information technology and – 6311 Data processing, hosting and categorisations, primarily NUTs 1 and NUTs 2. The telecommunications directors equipment operators related activities specifc categorisation used for each region was 2133 IT specialist managers 3131 IT operations technicians – 6312 Web portals determined by the nature of the cluster. Some 2134 IT project and programme managers 7214 Communication operators 2 CrunchBase data on UK digital companies. clusters cover a broader geographical area than 2123 Electrical engineers 5242 Telecommunications engineers 3 AngelList data on UK digital companies. others due to the spread of the tech companies and 2124 Electronics engineers 5245 IT engineers 4 Company websites. We drew on DueDil’s 2.7 how the community interacts (e.g. the cluster in 2126 Design and development engineers 2426 Business and Related Research Professionals million company-to-domain matches for 1 Liverpool covers a smaller geographical region than 2127 Production and process engineers 3112 Electrical and Electronics Technicians million+ companies. the Bristol & Bath cluster). 2135 IT business analysts, architects and systems 1136 Information technology and 5 Information was extracted from Wikipedia designers telecommunications directors monthly data dumps, specifcally to identify 2136 Programmers and software development 2473 Advertising accounts managers and creative professionals famous companies. directors 2137 Web design and development professionals 6 Companies that completed the Tech Nation 5244 TV, video and audio engineers 2139 Information technology and survey (that are also listed on Companies House) telecommunications professionals n.e.c. 7 Tech City UK’s Future Fifty list.

82 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 83 The following cluster regions were used THE FUTURE FOR TECH NATION SECTORS in the analysis: The Tech Nation process is designed to be as Advertising & Marketing – promotion and brand building of Hardware Development – the development (design, build Inner London products and services via digital platforms and channels. and testing) of the physical aspect of devices – e.g. computers, sensitive as possible to the fast-changing digital telecommunications. • Inner London – East (UKI12) Data Management & Analytics – data management is the economy. We’ve sought to compensate for the development, execution and supervision of plans, policies, programs Machine Learning – the study and construction of algorithms that • Inner London – West (UKI11) rigidity of the SIC code system by deploying other and practices that control, protect, deliver and enhance the value of can learn from data. Such algorithms operate by building a model North East (including Northumberland techniques for identifying digital companies. data and information assets. based on inputs and using that to make predictions or decisions, rather than following only explicitly programmed instructions. and Tyne and Wear) Our aim has been to build as scrupulous a model E-commerce – also known as electronic commerce, E-commerce is • Northumberland (UKC21) trading in products or services online. Machine-to-Machine Communications – technologies that allow as possible, though we cannot claim to be both wireless and wired systems to automatically communicate • Sunderland (UKC23) EdTech – abbreviated form of Educational Technology – the design, comprehensive. In future, we’ll look to bring on creation and application of technology for learning. with other devices of the same type and perform actions without the • Tyneside (UKC22) manual assistance of humans. more data partners to keep improving. This is just FinTech – abbreviated form of fnancial technology. Includes Hull (including East Yorkshire and Northern the beginning. both facilitators (those supporting the technology infrastructure Mobile & Tablet Development – the development (design, building Lincolnshire) within fnancial institutions) and disrupters (those challenging and testing) of applications/software for use on mobile and We welcome any relevant feedback into the tablet devices. • East Riding of Yorkshire (UKE12) current systems with new innovative methods). FinTech covers the research process. Please contact us with input application of technology across all elements of fnance. Network Infrastructure & Protocols – network infrastructure and • Kingston upon Hull, City of (UKE11) and where possible, we will factor it into future Games Development & Publishing – creation of video games and protocols provide the communication path and services between • North and North East Lincolnshire (UKE13) iterations of Tech Nation. applications, for a variety of platforms, including consoles, PCs, users, processes, applications, services and external networks. Shefeld (including South Yorkshire) mobile and tablets. Payments Infrastructure – the institutions, instruments, rules, • Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham (UKE31) [email protected] HealthTech – design, creation and application of software driven procedures, standards, and technical means established to afect the transfer of monetary value between two or more parties. • Shefeld (UKE32) technology within the healthcare industry to improve efciency, GLOSSARY assist in diagnosis and treatment, and enable better customer care Software Engineering – the application of a systematic, disciplined, Greater Manchester within healthcare services. Also covers applications developed for quantifable approach to the development, operation, and • Greater Manchester North (UKD32) Born digital sector – a term used to defne business activities that personal use. maintenance of software. have emerged in the digital era. Describes sectors that are purely • Greater Manchester South (UKD31) digital and do not exist outside of the digital industry e.g. games, Marketplace/Lead Generation – companies providing an online Systems Design and Integration – the process of linking together Bristol & Bath (including Gloucestershire software development and microprocessors. marketplace platform collating products and services from various diferent computing systems and software applications physically sources for the consumer to select from. Lead generation relies and/or functionally to act as a coordinated unit. and Wiltshire) Cluster – are an economic phenomenon that occurs when a on data sourced from the consumer to inform search results, and UI & UX Design User Interface (UI) design – is the design of • Bristol, City of (UKK11) critical mass of digital technology companies forms in a region. targeted advertising. Clusters of companies interact formally (e.g. by trading or forming websites, computers and software applications with a focus on • Gloucestershire (UKK13) partnerships) and informally (e.g. networking, socialising). Media & Entertainment – digital disruption of the creation making the user’s interaction as simple and efcient as possible, • North and North East Somerset, South and design of digital print media, television production, radio thus facilitating the user to accomplish the desired end result / goal. Digital company – a shortened version of digital technology broadcasting, music recording and production. In particular it covers Gloucestershire (UKK12) company. See methodology for full description. User Experience (UX) design – is the process of enhancing user online and mobile platforms. satisfaction by improving the usability and ease of use in the • (UKK14) Digital job – a job in a digital company as per the above defnition. Software Development – is the computer programming, interaction between the user and a product. • Wiltshire CC (UKK15) Fastest growing cluster – a cluster where the number of digital documenting, and testing involved in creating and maintaining Visual & Audio Design – the development of visual and audio media South Wales companies incorporated has grown faster than the national average. applications and frameworks involved in a software product. with the purpose of conveying information to the end-user in line • Cardif and Vale of Glamorgan (UKL22) High-density cluster – a cluster where a signifcant proportion of Telecommunications & Networking – infrastructure networks for with the desired experience. the total companies operate in the digital sector. data and voice communications. • Central Valleys (UKL15) Key capability – an area of expertise or skill. Sectors will often • Gwent Valleys (UKL16) feature key capabilities i.e. skills that are critical to delivering CAPABILITIES • Monmouthshire and Newport (UKL21) success. E.g. payments infrastructure skills play a large part in Artifcial Intelligence – the development of computer systems • Swansea (UKL18) FinTech companies. able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and • Bridgend and Neath Port Talbot (UKL17) NUTS categorisation – short for Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics: a geocode standard for referencing the subdivisions translation between languages. Birmingham (UKG31) of countries for statistical purposes. We have relied on the NUTs1 Cloud Computing/SaaS/Web Services – the provision of B2B Bournemouth and Poole (UKK21) and NUTS2 level categorisations of UK regions to analyse the 21 or B2C services that do not require the installation of client-side Brighton and Hove (UKJ21) clusters (chosen dependent on geographical spread of companies in software / applications. the area). Cambridge (including Cambridgeshire CC) Computer Simulation – the design of a virtual model that NHS – National Health Service. represents a physical system, the execution of that model on a (UKH12) OS development – operating system development. digital computer, and the analysis of the resulting output. Edinburgh, City of (UKM25) Public fnance – fnance available from Government / local Content & Media Production – the creation of information that Liverpool (UKD52) Government funding mechanisms. delivers value to the end-user or audience. Norwich (including Norfolk) (UKH13) Private fnance – fnance available from private individuals or Cyber Security – the body of technologies, processes and practices Oxfordshire (UKJ14) companies such as friends and family, angel investors, institutional designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access. Reading (including Berkshire) (UKJ11) venture capital funds or corporate venture capital funds. Data Science – the study of information’s provenance, what it Leeds area (UKE4) Sector – a sub-division of the digital industry where there is a specifc focus. E.g. digital companies building solutions in the represents and how it can be turned into a valuable resource in the Glasgow (UKM34) education sector as known as EdTech companies; digital companies creation of business and IT strategies. Belfast (and Northern Ireland) (UKN0) building solutions in the fnancial services sector as known as Digital Marketing – the marketing of products or services using Dundee (and Angus) (UKM21) FinTech companies. digital channels to reach consumers. Great Malvern (and Worcestershire) (UKG12) Smart cities – is a vendor / city term commonly used to refer to the Firmware & OS Development – the development (design, build and creation of knowledge infrastructure. ‘Smart City’, in everyday use, testing) of memory and code that dictates the operational usage of is inclusive of terms such as ‘digital city’ or ‘connected cities’. a device.

84 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 85 COMMUNITY PARTNERS We would like to thank all of our community partners across the UK who helped support the creation, development and promotion of the Tech Nation project.

We believe the UK is the best place to start and grow a digital business. We deliver programmes focused on accelerating the growth of digital businesses, in London and cities across the UK, at all stages of their development. A publicly funded organisation with a private sector mentality, we also provide a voice of advocacy change and we are dedicated to fostering the right conditions to start, grow and scale a digital business in the UK. The Tech Nation team included Katy Turner, Emma Swift, Ian Plunkett, Ryan Procter, Pan Demetriou and Ravi Lal.

CORE PROJECT PARTNERS

Dubbed “the Bloomberg of unquoted companies” by the FT, DueDil is MTM is an independent research and strategy consultancy. the one of largest sources of private company information in Europe. We are specialists in the media and technology sectors, providing It has a huge database of more than 45 million companies. DueDil expert advice to our clients on how to succeed in fast-moving, is a research tool primarily used for B2B lead generation and credit digitally-driven markets. risk management. Since its inception in 2011 it has raised more than $25m from respected investors including Oak Investment Partners, Passion Capital and Notion Capital.

Adzuna is a search engine for job ads that lists every job, everywhere. Where the world meets startups. Investors: invest in early-stage Our mission is to be the best place to start looking for a job. We search thousands of websites so you don’t have to and bring together venture capital.

CrunchBase is the world’s most comprehensive dataset of startup activity and it’s accessible to everyone. Founded in 2007 by Mike Accelerator Programs, Free Deals, Events and Contests. Arrington, CrunchBase began as a simple crowd sourced database tens of thousands of contributors.

Employment data in this report was provided by CareerBuilder in Seven Hills, the campaigning company, was founded by conjunction with Economic Modeling Specialists Intl. (EMSI), a Michael Hayman MBE and Nick Giles to generate momentum for CareerBuilder company specializing in labour market analysis. As Britain’s high growth companies and most exciting entrepreneurs. the global leader in human capital solutions, CareerBuilder works Seven Hills was named best corporate consultancy in the world with the world’s top employers, providing everything from labour for 2014 by the Holmes Report and is one of the fastest growing market intelligence to talent management software and other communications agencies in the UK. recruitment solutions.

86 TECH CITY UK | TECH NATION 2015 | WWW.TECHCITYUK.COM WWW.DUEDIL.COM/TECHNATION/2015 87 techcityuk.com @TechCityUK duedil.com/technation/2015