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The digital & tech sector in Sheffield

In this Editorial
Business Invest
An exterior shot of the Digital Campus in the centre of Sheffield.

Strength in breadth

Sheffield has long been renowned for its strengths in the digital and creative industries, with ground breaking agencies like The Designer's Republic, Warp and Sumo all having been founded in Sheffield. But it goes far beyond that now, as our capabilities in digital and tech have found specialisms within other sectors, meaning we are also leading the way in mobility, education and manufacturing technology.

We believe this is what sets us apart as a place in which to invest - there is no one dominant area, meaning cross-fertilisation of talent, ideas and practices increases the strength of all specialisms thanks to the friendly and collaborative nature of Sheffield as a city.

As a result of this, as well as numerous digital bodies and festivals, there is an ever expanding value chain which is delivering specialist training to support growth in the sector and a thriving network of over 100 companies, incubators and organisations; all of which make-up our digital media and technology ecosystem.

EdTech in Sheffield

See why we are such a leading force in this huge growth sector.

thanks to 27,000 people working in IT & Digital media.

Over 60%

of the UK's educational technology capacity is in Sheffield.

Creative tech: Local champions; global leaders

ZOO Artwork Full Sketch An exterior shot of the Joi Polloi building, at night, lit up by moody blue lighting. Sumo Digital

Universal Everything

Universal Everything is a digital arts studio founded by ex-Designers Republic senior designer Matt Pyke in 2004. It has since then worked with a huge range of major brands, including Chanel, Intel, Nike, Hyundai, Microsoft, Samsung and Apple, to create interactive and visually astounding experiences, as well as collaborations with international arts institutions such as the Sundance Film Festival, Sydney Opera House and Radiohead. They also created the launch animation for the largest screen ever built, the mega-screen in Times Square, in 2014.

Visit Universal Everything

Zoo Digital

ZOO Digital epitomises Sheffield’s creative technology sector, as a software company that provides foundational services to the international content industry. The ZOOstudio platform provides comprehensive localisation and distribution tools to content owners and distribution partners across the world, and the firm has offices in Los Angeles and Dubai from which it is able to serve clients such as Disney, Warner Brothers and Netflix who operate globally. The data volumes and ultra-tight security requirements demanded by modern cinema and TV releases mean that ZOO has long been a pioneer in cloud infrastructure, and is continually innovating new use cases that leverage their core technologies.

Visit Zoo Digital

Joi Polloi

Evidenced by their two BAFTAs for TV programmes ‘Humans’ and ‘Live From Space’, and an Emmy nomination for their ‘Don’t Stop the Music’ campaign, Joi Polloi are at the top of their game. They specialise in producing high quality, interactive experiences and platforms for the broadcast, media and cultural industries. They have worked with Channel 4 and the BBC for many years, acting as digital partners for flagship drama and reality series including Live from Space, Humans, BBC Glastonbury, The Great British Bake Off and The Circle.

Visit Joi Polloi

Sumo Digital

Sumo Digital can trace its lineage directly back to Gremlin Graphics, the quintessential British video game maker from the 8-bit era of the 1980s. Today, it is one of the largest and most successful video game companies in the UK, employing over 500 staff and with studios in 6 British cities as well as a development facility in Pune, India. With the main operation still firmly here in Sheffield, and with strong ties to the local talent base via Sheffield Hallam University, Sumo has been responsible for an array of major ‘triple A’ video games since its founding in 2003, including Little Big Planet 3, Dead Island 2, Snake Pass and Team Sonic Racing, and was instrumental in paving the way for the National Videogame Museum to relocate to Sheffield in 2018.

Read more about Sumo

WanDisco

WanDisco are the live data company trusted by some of the world's biggest brands. They are all about helping businesses run faster, more efficiently and serving customers better by having better access to real data in live time. Simple to say, much more difficult to execute. 

The impact WanDisco has had on Sheffield has been huge - from putting the city on the map with regards what they do, to working closely with Sheffield College and the Universities to take on graduates, and working passionately with other indigenous businesses. On top of this they are leading the way with new working practices, having moved to a 4-day working week to enhance employee wellbeing and attract and enhance talent. Hats off to them.

Visit their site
A man dressed in a dark jacket and black jeans stand on Victoria Quays in Sheffield.

Graduates with the right skills

Hear from WanDisco's CEO, David Richard's (and Hallam graduate Harry Battles) on why Sheffield is such a great place for a business like this, and for grads.

Mobility tech: keeping the world going

Two men, smartly dressed, sat at a table talking. There is a laptop computer on the table. A woman wearing a high visibility vest and hat looking at a clipboard with a train going past in the background. A blue humanoid robot with a white face developed by Sheffield Robotics.

The Floow

The Floow was founded in 2012 through an idea by Aldo Monteforte and Sam Chapman, who joined forces with academics from the University of Sheffield to bring their concept to life. The ambition was to make vehicles safer and smarter by making better use of movement data and insights from the social sciences to change driver behaviour and lower the risks on our roads. They have done so via products like FloowDrive, which uses the smartphone as a sensor for generating telematics data on a driver's behaviour via an app, allowing insurers to accurately assess the risk of that driver. It also encourages the user to make improvements to their driving to increase road safety. In doing so, over the last seven years the company has significantly disrupted the global telematics industry and now has insurance customers across five continents, with a presence in Italy, the USA and China in addition to their global HQ in Sheffield.

The Floow

3Squared

From its roots as a fledgling web development agency in the early 2000s, 3Squared has grown to become a major player in the digital railway solutions market, providing a range of software to the industry via its RailSmart suite of applications, covering areas such as train operations, compliance, safety and performance monitoring. The firm is increasingly involved in the use of machine learning and data analytics to make performance gains, for example by analysing weather and foliage data from satellites to reduce “wheel flats” caused by trains skidding on wet leaves.

3squared

Sheffield Robotics

Sheffield Robotics is a joint research collaboration between the two Sheffield universities, set up to pursue responsible, ethical robotics research, and pioneer new products and processes that will transform manufacturing, healthcare, infrastructure and many other aspects of human activity and being. This research currently involves over 100 academics across the city, and traces its history back to the establishment of the AI Vision Research Unit (AIVRU) in the 1970s, set up to develop computer vision systems that exploited the principles underlying human vision. Sheffield Robotics now sits at the heart of a flourishing robotics industry in the city, with spin-outs such as Consequential Robotics and Ibex Automation, as well as recent arrivals like Bossanova.

Sheffield Robotics

Advanced manufacturing tech: supporting the UK's premier hub

A still from the announcement video for the Financial Times' These People This List. A virtual reality silver sports car created by Lightworks. An illustration of Elements Technology Product Portrait with a laptop and a mobile phone.

Razor

Listed in the FT:1000 of Europe's fastest growing companies, Razor are disruptors working across many areas of digital and tech, with their grounding having come from working alongside software architects at the University of Sheffield AMRC, with whom they developed Artificial Intelligence solutions that made a massive breakthrough in the inspection of critical aerospace components for a global OEM, delivering inspection rates up to 4,000 times faster than traditional methods. One of a growing number of pioneering digital SMEs in Sheffield who understand the potential of “digital meets manufacturing”, Razor are now engaged in several major projects that will transform industrial processes over the coming years.

Read more about Razor

Boeing

Boeing Sheffield’s £40m factory, which opened in 2018, has a fully digitally-enabled backbone that heralds the future of manufacturing. Before Boeing Sheffield opened its doors, the AMRC developed virtual production system models that allowed Boeing to optimise space, materials and machinery, and showed how the plant could increase productivity by 50%. Blanketed with location-tracking technology, the factory integrates location-aware tooling, parts and components with multiple systems to enable a digital thread across the factory and extending to the supply chain. This, together with performance data collected from automation, creates a digital twin of the factory which models the entire production system from goods-in to goods-out, and is the company’s Industry 4.0 exemplar.

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Lightworks

Acquired by Siemens PLM Software, Lightwork Design specialises in developing software for 3D rendering and virtual reality (VR) experiences. By incorporating Lightworks’ technology, Siemens is able to provide enhanced 3D data visualisation, high-end rendering and VR capabilities via its comprehensive suite of 3D product lifecycle management (PLM) applications. This will increase the accuracy of “digital twins” by adding critical visualisation information to the virtual product: through the entire product lifecycle from initial design prototyping and engineering, via collaborative design reviews, to simulation and testing. Using more realistic imagery, simulated physics and immersive environments helps customers identify and address potential problems very early in the life-cycle.

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Elements Technology

Elements Technology represent a new breed of local digital tech startups that are looking at the manufacturing industries and identifying areas where digital tools and techniques can make a transformative difference, by addressing pain-points with the right interfaces and data architectures. Their software automates many of the processes that in many small and medium sized manufacturing businesses are still done by hand or with outdated, cumbersome IT. There is now a rapidly expanding cohort of startups being born of this interaction between digital technologists and more traditional local engineering and manufacturing businesses, as mutual understanding of the challenges and opportunities increases on both sides.

Elements Technology

Raising Sheffield’ profile: Tech Climbers

Business Sheffield is an Associate of Tech Climbers 2023, a regional list showcasing the top performing, IP rich, product led technology businesses in growth regions across the UK. Our expert Tech Advisors Chris and Morgan have been raising awareness of Tech Climbers Yorkshire among Sheffield’s thriving network of tech businesses and taking part in scoring to help uplift the best in tech across the region.

Read about five Sheffield companies recognised as top-performing tech businesses

With strengths ranging from learning and movement to the creative industries and advanced manufacturing, coupled with an outstanding network of organisations supporting tech businesses, Sheffield is an ideal place to start or scale a tech business. We’re proud to be part of the growth the sector has seen here in recent years. 

We want to see this crucible of activity and innovation recognised as integral to the UK’s tech scene, and initiatives like Tech Climbers are essential in raising its profile. We’re passionate about tech and new business in Sheffield, and excited to see emerging businesses getting the support and recognition they deserve.

 

 

More resources

Incubation and acceleration

The digital and tech sector has a symbiotic relationship with incubation and accelerator programmes - of which, appropriately, Sheffield has many fantastic examples.

See more info

Sector specialisms

The crossing over of digital and tech with health, culture and manufacturing is a real asset to the city, because talent enhances talent for mutual gain.

Discover more

What we can do

We are here to help your business integrate into Sheffield, no matter what size or specialism. Our advisers and investment managers can help whether you are an indigenous business or looking to relocate.

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