The creative and digital industries in the Sheffield region are growing at a faster rate than anywhere else in the UK in terms of specialist companies and new jobs. This substantial cluster of companies now share a unique body of experience and talent that makes Sheffield one of the leading centres of creativity and digital specialism in the country. It is a sector locally that is characterised by a combination of high performing home-grown businesses (such as The Designers Republic, Zoo Digital, Sumo, PlusNet, Technophobia and Jennic) and international market leaders (such as AutoDesk, ARM, Ansys and OCLC).
Many of these company’s operations can be found in the city’s Digital Square Mile, a concentration of activity in the centre of Sheffield that includes much of the supporting infrastructure for creative and digital industries; business incubators, managed workspace, specialist business support, research institutions, university departments and public amenities. The focus of all this activity in a particular part of Sheffield city centre has created a dynamic location for hundreds of businesses in the sector.
Key Strengths
E-learning
Sheffield has established itself as the UK centre of e-learning with around 1000 people employed in e-learning development and service businesses. The city is home to two of the largest applied e-learning services in the world; Ufi learndirect and e-SY.info, as well as a breadth of companies covering the full spectrum of e-learning solutions and online information services.
Sheffield is also home to Learning Light, a centre of excellence in the use of learning technologies in the workplace and organisational learning best practice.
Learning Light:
- Provide access to world class knowledge, research and learning
- Act as a conduit between learning technology buyers and suppliers
- Work with businesses to help apply best practice knowledge to help improve business performance.
Interactive Media
Interactive services, applications and content bring together the worlds of computing, the web, mobile phones and console games and Sheffield companies are at the vanguard of this media revolution. The likes of Quba and Desq are establishing a national reputation as leaders in this field of interactive media and the Docfest, as well as being an annual documentary film festival are pioneering in this field with their Crossover labs.
Sheffield is also home to Just:b who describe themselves at collaborators and catalysts in the field of interactive media. They work across the UK and internationally organising events and stimulating debate on the future of interactivity.
Design
With the city’s long history of innovation, design is interwoven in the fabric of Sheffield culture and the ‘Made in Sheffield’ brand is famous throughout the world. Design is still at the forefront of the Sheffield economy as the city maintains a reputation for quality products based on technical innovation and design. There are also world leaders in relation to the production of creative content in the spheres of video games, film making and branding.
People, Skills & Knowledge
The Sheffield city region draws on a working age population of 1.3 million people and there are 12 universities, within peak hour travel time. These generate around 50,000 graduates per year, including 6,000 graduating with CDI specialisms. This is Britain’s most concentrated and popular higher education destination outside London.
The region boasts a wealth of knowledge with research centres in digital technologies ranging from Semi-conductors to learning science and from smart cards to visualisation. Four of the local universities are in the national top 20 in computer science and for Art & Design, including interactive media, Sheffield Hallam was 6th largest of the top graded research universities and the only one north of London.
Property & Infrastructure
Sheffield city centre has seen a significant amount of redevelopment in the last decade. One of the new schemes, the first phase of which will be available towards the end of 2008, is the Sheffield Digital Campus. This is a development of office buildings, designed specifically for businesses in the digital and IT sectors, located adjacent to the mainline rail station and at the heart of the digital square mile.
Electric Works is a managed workspace facility at the Sheffield Digital Campus which will open in early 2009. As well as offering state of the art office accommodation for creative and digital businesses, the building is also equipped with an advanced digital infrastructure. This includes an injection suite enabling high bandwidth media content transfer connectivity to the main broadcasting hubs.
In addition to the facilities at the Sheffield Digital Campus, the immediate vicinity also benefits from over 100,000 sq ft of existing space for creative and digital businesses. This includes the Workstation, part of a complex, not only providing small offices, but also a 5 screen independent cinema and a café bar. There is also the award-winning business incubator at the Sheffield Technology Parks where new start technology companies in the creative and digital sector can access support.