There are lots of reasons to Invest in Lancashire

Dominated by digital, creative, software and computer science businesses, Lancashire’s creative economy is worth £1.3 billion in GVA, employing 36,000 people. We are well placed to offer skilled staff to support the sector, with world-class centres of excellence at our universities partnering with innovative local enterprises. The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) offers several digital and creative courses with its Film Production BA qualification, producing Oscar© nominated stars and National Television Award winners. They are also the first university in the UK to offer an online postgraduate degree in Digital Marketing and Communications.

Lancaster University has a cutting-edge design department and plays host to Info Lab, which has fuelled a cluster of digital and creative businesses including Fat Media, one of the largest and most respected digital agencies in the region. Burnley is also recognised by Tech Nation as one of the fastest growing digital clusters in the UK and is home to multi award winning AMS Neve. The UK’s first Digital Skills Partnership is being piloted by DCMS in the county, in conjunction with the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership’s Skills and Employment Hub. The innovative approach will help identify gaps in skills in Lancashire and encourage partners to work together to address them while attracting investment from outside bodies.

The increasing adoption of industrial digitalisation has led to a growing base of companies in the county developing software to serve key industries. Our universities’ expertise in computer science, combined with ICT business incubators, have created innovative software development spin-outs as well as the opportunity for large companies looking to establish in the county to collaborate with small businesses and software companies serving the aerospace, automotive and medical industries.

Lancashire also has nationally renowned expertise in cyber security and is the national Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research, as awarded by GCHQ and the EPSRC, the British Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.