Technology industry
- greaterlondon
- Apr 18, 2015
- 3 min read
The technology industry is amongst the fastest growing sectors in London. In 2011, Information Technology, telecom and related companies leased 1.3 million square feet of London's office space, almost a 100 percent increase from the previous year. This is despite the overall property market and economy remaining depressed.
Although European cities with tech hubs such as Dublin and Berlin offer lesser rentals, London remains the European hub for most tech companies owing to its strategic location, easy availability of talent and access tofinance.
Outside the United States, London has the largest number of venture capital backed tech companies. In 2011, London based companies raised a total of about £450 million in venture capital investment, and two out of every three of the 380 companies in this list were tech based companies. This is a 25 percent increase over the previous year. London accounts for almost 20 percent of all the tech investments made in Europe. In all, technology companies employ about 400,000 people in central London alone. Another 300,000 people depend on the various support service jobs that the technology industries generate.
Tech Clusters
The traditional hub of technology industries in London is Old Street and Shoreditch, in the East London area, bordering the City of London. The place, known as Silicon Roundabout, is home to about 15 major tech companies.
The biggest and most prominent tech cluster is the East London Tech City, near the Silicon roundabout. The government has announced a slew of incentives to develop and attract start up entrepreneurs to Tech City and shape it as an outstanding innovation and technology hub. Modelled on Silicon Valley, this hub has Imperial College London, Loughborough University and University College London as academic partners. The hub also has the support of industry majors such as BlueVia, Google and Pearson. In addition, many other information technology majors such as Barclays, Facebook, Intel Corporation, McKinsey & Company, Vodafone and others have bases there.
The tech industry is also expanding to other parts of Central London. New tech clusters have come up in places such as Fitzrovia, South Bank, Covent Garden, Clerkenwell and Paddington.
Tech start-ups are especially interested in Bloomsbury and Covent Garden, as attested by the 21 per cent increase in new office space being taken up by technology companies compared to the previous year. The City fringe area, including the traditional hub of Old Street has seen an increase in 23 per cent rental occupancy during the corresponding period. The City of London itself witnessed a 21 per cent increase in office space occupancy by tech companies.
Major Tech Companies
London is home to several big tech firms and start-ups. Many of them have also announced expansion plans as well:
Apple has taken up new office space in Regents Park.
Cisco Systems, with its base at Tech City plans for major investments over the next five years.
Facebook has offices in Covent Garden and Carnaby Street.
Google has its UK headquarters in Victoria in Central London. In addition, it has taken up a seven-storyoffice building in East London on Bonhill Street. Google plans to run workshops, showcase new products and provide office space for local start-ups through this new facility.
Groupon has made a new investment of 43,000 square feet facility in the City.
Nokia has its UK headquarters in Paddington.
Qualacomm has its base at Silicon roundabout.
Telefónica has set up a new office in Regent Street.
The majority of the tech companies in London are small to medium start-ups. At last count, an estimated 514 tech companies were spread across all the tech clusters. Prominent start ups in recent years that have become highly successful include 7Digital, Eventbrite, INQ Mobile, Last.fm, Mendeley, Mind Candy, Moo Print, Playfish, SeatWave, Spotify, Stylistpick, We7 and more.
Events
Being a major tech hub, major tech conferences and events are a routine event in London:
The Cloud Computing World Forum highlights the latest trends and happenings in the world of cloud computing. This annual forum attracts the maximum number of participants from Europe, when compared to other similar events.
The Operations Support System (OSS) / Business Support System (BSS) World Summit is a world event to discuss and update on these two critical functions, for the telecom industry.
London also hosts many world famous tech related conferences regularly such as the M2M World Congress, SMi's Annual Cyber Defence, The International Conference on Signal and Information Processing (ICSIP 2012) and the Green Data Centre Conference and Exhibition.
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