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Tech North kicks off 2017 report roadshow in Newcastle

After publishing its report into the strength of the UK’s tech economy, Tech City began its Tech Nation 2017 roadshow in Newcastle last friday.

This year, for the first time, the report is being launched around a number of key UK tech clusters - such as Newcastle - as opposed to the launch being centred in London, as was the traditional convention.

Held at The Core, Newcastle Science Central, the event gathered a number of leading tech personalities from across the region, which included a panel of expert speakers who discussed the findings.

The findings highlighted the huge role that regional clusters play in growing a sector that now has a national turnover of £170 billion and enjoys almost £7 billion worth of investment, higher than any other European country.

Reacting to the North East’s considerable contribution to the sector, Jim Mawdsley, CEO of business support agency Generator and head of Digital Union said: “The 2017 Tech Nation report provides further evidence that the Tech Sector in the North East LEP area is growing beyond expectation.

“In Newcastle and Gateshead alone, we contributed £1 billion in GVA while 22% of businesses based here are in the high growth category. This is the second highest percentage in the UK and 2% ahead of London. Sunderland weighs in heavily on the statistics as well with 101% Digital Turnover growth – 3rd in the UK.

“These figures are astounding but I for one enjoy analysing a little bit further and if you take the GVA figures in Newcastle Gateshead and divide it by the number of people working in the sector you find that each and every person contributes an average of £49,285.62 and that’s £4,500 more per person than our Manchester cousins.”

Jim added: “We surely are the most productive and fastest growing Tech cluster in the North.”

Don’t miss tomorrow’s North East bulletin where we’ll be discussing ’Five things to consider on the future of North East tech’ as we continue our ongoing digital series.