Focus: West Midlands
Located in the heart of the UK, the West Midlands region provides a perfect cost-effective location solution for companies looking to do business with the UK and Europe
The West Midlands region
The West Midlands is a diverse and vibrant region that is located at the heart of the UK. The West Midlands comprises the counties of Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Shropshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire and the boroughs of Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton. Each area of the West Midlands has its own distinctive landmarks and personality and each offers something different, from the vibrancy of Birmingham, the UK’s second-largest city, to historic market towns and picturesque rural areas. The population of the West Midlands region is 5,366,700 – 9% of the total UK population. Birmingham has a population of over one million people.
West Midlands - The place to live
An excellent quality of life is one of the many advantages of living and working within the West Midlands region. From contemporary canal-side apartments in exciting city locations, elegant period housing in laid-back suburbs, historic market towns or thatched cottages in picturesque villages, there’s remarkable choice in the West Midlands. Add to this the excellent in-region West Midlands transport network and typically short commute times, so even in the city, you are only minutes away from open countryside, and small towns and villages.
But how do you spend your free time in a region so packed full of opportunity?
From Michelin-starred restaurants in Shropshire, to original balti houses in Birmingham’s Balti Triangle, delicious food is always around the corner. West Midlands have an arts and entertainment scene that’s as exciting as you’ll find anywhere in the world, whether your preference is the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon, an evening at the Birmingham Royal Ballet, or golf at the world-renowned Belfry Golf Course.
West Midlands - The place to connect
The West Midlands is at the heart of England’s road and rail network.
In addition, Birmingham International Airport hosts direct flights between Birmingham and Newark. Airport links with other European business cities are first class, making the West Midlands an ideal springboard to doing business with the rest of Europe. Birmingham is the second-largest city in the UK, but is located near enough to London to conduct frequent business and just far enough away to offer a cost-effective business office location solution. Moreover, the West Midlands is located in the population center of England and is situated between London and northern cities such as Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle. Besides the million-plus people in Birmingham and five million-plus in the West Midlands, the West Midlands region is ideally located to serve all the major population centers in the UK.
West Midlands - The place to invest
There are about 680 US companies and 40 Canadian companies that have invested in the West Midlands. Besides a central location within the UK, and easy access to other UK and European major cities, the West Midlands region is a high-quality yet relatively inexpensive business location. The West Midlands is often chosen as a manufacturing, sales and distribution center, a headquarter location or back-office location. The West Midlands is traditionally seen as the center of the UK’s transport industry, with expertise in automotive, aerospace, and rail technologies. Other key sectors in the West Midlands include business and professional services, information and communications technology (ICT), food and drink, medical and healthcare technologies, and environmental technologies.
The government declared recently that the West Midlands is now an official Low Carbon Economic Area, in which around £19 million is to be invested in research and development of low-carbon vehicles. The money from the government’s regional development agency, Advantage West Midlands (AWM), and the European Community will fund various joint research projects. These involve the Universities of Warwick and Coventry and local car makers, and include projects such as Advantage West Midlands Niche Vehicle program.
Likewise, researchers at the University of Birmingham are leading hydrogen research. The West Midlands is investing in the future as a “high-tech, low-carbon” economy. Just as the West Midlands played a vital role in the Industrial Revolution, it is now at the forefront of the development and application of vitally important low-carbon technologies that will power the global economy forward.
Manufacturing is vital to the West Midlands economy and many US and Canadian firms are based here:
- High-tech aerospace firm Goodrich Corporation is researching green aircraft fuel systems with commercial and university partners and has opened a state-of-the-art engine control systems test facility in the West Midlands in Birmingham.
- Examples of sales and distribution centers include Gap, located near Rugby, and UPS, which has based its new and expanded UK ground-freight hub in the West Midlands. In each case, the talent, location advantages in the West Midlands, and associated cost savings have all added up to a winning combination.
West Midlands - The place to innovate
The West Midlands region is associated with innovation from Shakespeare in the arts, to inventing and applying the technologies that led to the Industrial Revolution to a new future as a digital media hub and a high-tech, low-carbon technology and manufacturing region. In addition to the Royal Shakespeare Company, which carries on the live arts tradition on the stage at Stratford-upon-Avon, more modern forms of the expressive arts are gaining a global following.
The West Midlands region is strong in digital media and entertainment, including film, gaming, serious games, and web 2.0 applications. Twenty-five per cent of the flourishing games software development in the UK is developed in the West Midlands. Rare Games, a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation, is setting up a Games Studio in Birmingham. Overall, the digital media industry is growing fast in the West Midlands. In areas such as Serious Games, which is all about the practical use of games software for serious learning and educational activities, the West Midlands region has a leading global position.
The Serious Games Institute at Coventry University Technology Park uses advanced computer-games technology to drive innovation and training in fields such as e-learning, simulation, collaboration and social networking. The University of Warwick’s Warwick Manufacturing Group is home to a major investment in a Warwick Digital Laboratory offering digital manufacturing and 3D visualisation techniques for multidisciplinary research.
Design, research and development is a vital and growing feature of the West Midlands economy. The West Midlands region’s leading research universities include the University of Birmingham, the University of Warwick, Aston University and Coventry University: The University of Birmingham is recognized for its basic research expertise in science, technology, engineering and math, as well as advanced research in a number of areas, including materials and hydrogen fuel-cell development and application.
The University of Warwick is well known for its advanced design and manufacturing expertise, as well as its extensive global links. Among Aston University’s strengths is modeling of complex systems. Coventry University has supplied the global automotive industry with a number of famous designers. The Birmingham Science City initiative works on projects across five key technology themes of advanced materials, digital media and ICT, energy, medical technology and healthcare and transport technology.
West Midlands - The place to grow
With its wealth of support and opportunities, the West Midlands region is the perfect place to grow business opportunities in the UK and beyond to Europe.
For more information on the West Midlands, contact the Inward Investment team at Advantage West Midlands:
Tel: +44 121 380 3500
Website: www.thewestmidlandsregion.co.uk
West Midlands Case study: Rare Games
This US firm connected to success in the West Midlands
Rare Games’ new Birmingham base is major opportunity for West Midlands region’s talent pool
Rare Games, a Microsoft Games Studio, has signed a contract to take some of the last remaining space at Digbeth’s latest creative and digital hub, Fazeley Studios.
The move to the West Midlands will bring another 90 high-value, high-technology gaming jobs to the West Midlands – many of which will be for graduates.
Rare searched the UK for its newest site and worked closely with regional development agency Advantage West Midlands to find the perfect premises, in Birmingham.
Rare’s West Midlands facility will be home to 90 staff working on new Rare games. Starting mainly as a production, test and usability site to accommodate the company’s evolving methodology in game creation, in time it is expected Rare’s new base will house a world-class usability laboratory.
In announcing the new Rare facilityin the West Midlands, which opens in April, studio head Mark Betteridge said: “The old way of making games just doesn’t work any more, we need to be much more flexible in how we staff a team and setting up a new facility at Fazeley Studios in Digbeth will help us to do this. “The support from Advantage West Midlands has been invaluable and helped us to identify and secure a central location surrounded by the type of businesses that will make it a very appealing environment in which to work. The West Midlands location offers a central urban setting, which is highly accessible and in the digital media hub of Birmingham. “While we are committed to keeping our headquarters in Twycross, we feel a second studio in a more urban location will be appealing to some staff. Fazeley Studios will be a great adjunct to our main operation.”
Jane Holmes, International Investment Manager at Advantage West Midlands, said: “Rare’s move is fantastic news for the West Midlands, not least because it will bring 90 high-technology jobs to the West Midlands region, along with a major, globally successful company. The move is also great news for our graduates as there will be many exciting career opportunities for highly trained people with the right skills.
“The West Midlands has a long-established video games industry, accounting for one quarter of the UK games workforce. Rare’s arrival will further strengthen the region’s reputation around the world for excellence in computer games.
“In line with the West Midlands Economic Strategy and AWM’s International Business Strategy, we are helping inward investors understand the value of setting up in the region – in particular focusing on developing markets with the most wealth and employment potential, and the capacity to compete in the global economy.” Lucan Gray, who created Fazeley Studios, said: “I am delighted that Rare has chosen Fazeley Studios for its second base. The fact that a Microsoft Games Studio is coming to Digbeth shows how things have moved on in the area in the last couple of years, in spite of the challenging economic background. “Our aim is for Digbeth to be the geographic heart of Birmingham’s digital economy. You can’t get much better than Microsoft arriving as a vote of confidence in our ability to deliver that aim.
“Rare and the other companies based here have created hundreds of live-end jobs. What attracted Microsoft was the quality and depth of digital talent amongst the other tenants at Fazeley Studios and the very real working community. We now have an amazing cocktail of one of the world’s biggest digital businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises mixing and trading together. This is very much the story of the new digital economy – talent is what counts, rather than the size of business.
“We are lucky to have had support from Advantage West Midlands without which the project could not have happened. By investing in the right kind of space and understanding and nurturing the working community within it, Digbeth can attract and retain the best businesses and talent for the city. “By addressing the specific needs of these businesses Birmingham can compete globally in all things digital and creative, and Rare will be a huge asset in this endeavour.”
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