Today kicks off the start of Global Entrepreneurship Week, the world’s biggest celebration of entrepreneurship, the week long festival will see a host of live events taking place across the UK. Last year 2,500 events took place reaching more than 340,000 entrepreneurs and this year it is expected to be even bigger. Global Entrepreneurship Week aims to help individuals at every stage of the entrepreneurial journey from helping prospective entrepreneurs to get started, to assisting entrepreneurs to connect globally.
Entrepreneurship in the UK is thriving as the country’s business population reaches an all time high of 2.1 million, a 4% increase from last year. Despite this, one-third of the adult population say that they would like to establish their own business but only 7% actually ever do. While London is leading the way, other tech hubs across the UK are gaining attention, particularly in biotech and fintech industries.
Manchester’s tech scene is rapidly growing, with employment in tech second only to London. It’s also the second largest tech cluster in the UK with software and web the top business sectors. The north of England alone is now home to 11 tech companies valued at more than $1 billion, and Manchester itself is home to familiar startups like LateRooms, BooHoo and Lad Bible.
Much tech innovation starts off at the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University which both have a strong reputation for their engineering and technical courses. It is also home to MediaCity, housing the BBC, ITV and Granada along with 80 startups and SME’s and this Thursday it is the Northern Stars grand final, the competition to find the most promising early stage startup in the north of England.
One of the oldest and most well established tech clusters in the UK is Cambridge having already produced 15 digital tech companies worth over a billion dollars. Home to one of the best universities in the world there is no shortage of tech talent and Cambridge has propelled itself as a tech hub, particularly in industries such as cyber security, biotech and electrics. And it has not gone unnoticed, with leading corporations such as HP, Amazon and Apple establishing a presence there. It is also home to ARM one of the world’s biggest microprocessor companies which still maintains its headquarters in Cambridge.
The Scottish capital is a leading UK tech cluster, home to unicorn billion dollar companies Skyscanner and Fanduel. Edinburgh prides itself on its world class tech talent and it is now a base to international companies like Amazon, Microsoft and IBM. Edinburgh has one of the highest concentrations of people working in tech in the UK and is steadily gaining momentum for its fintech innovation, home to the likes of Money Dashboard and RollRun. The second largest financial services sector in the UK after London, Edinburgh’s abundance of tech talent is firmly putting UK fintech on the global map.
Entrepreneurship in the UK is thriving and despite Brexit, London and other tech hubs across the UK are proving their substance and worth on a global scale and we are sure this is only going to rocket over the coming years. We work with a number of clients who started out as startups but have gone on to expand globally and as such are looking for the top tech talent, check out our job page for the latest jobs.
