Location Spotlight: Manchester

Media companies have been relocating to Manchester. Should you?

The Neighbourhood

Manchester is a city with a thriving housing market that is being targeted by property developers. This is driven by the far more reasonable living costs in the city when compared to London combined with the rapidly expanding population. 

It is predicted that the population will grow to 2.87 million by 2025 and this means a substantial increase in the demand for housing.

The revival in demand for city centre living has had a positive effect on the property market and around half of graduating students in the city decided to remain there. This high number of students choosing to stay is heavily influenced by the plentiful employment opportunities and the affordable housing options.

Manchester

The Trends

Manchester has always been a city that has been driven by an industrious spirit. This reputation has been around since the industrial revolution and has remained with the city since then. 

Although manufacturing still makes up a large percentage of the employment in the greater region, the prime sector in the Northern city is shifting towards advanced manufacturing that involves new technology in order to improve manufacturing processes. 

Manchester, in fact, has the highest level of high-technology manufacturing compared to UK cities other than London. As the manufacturing sector becomes more and more advanced, the staff that are employed by this sector become more office based in their activities. 

Therefore, there is less space and less labour needed. This is changing the sector to be more characteristically like the service industry.

Cathedral Manchester

Business Park Spotlight: Media City UK

Technology focused businesses have been setting up shop in Manchester- the BBC, ITV, Kellogg’s and Ericsson have moved their offices to Media City UK.

Media City UK is a property development in Salford and Trafford in Greater Manchester. The main tenants are media organisations as well as the University of Salford. The land was previously the Port of Manchester and the Manchester Docks.

The move of large media companies to Media City UK was part of the trend that has been happening over the past decade for a decentralisation from London.

As the capital becomes too expensive for media companies, a lot of them are choosing Media City UK and the size of the development continues to expand and, over the next 8 years, it will become double its initial size.

In Manchester, premises costs are around 50% cheaper and full-time staff costs are around 40% lower than London. Considering that lifestyle costs are also cheaper, there is little question as to why these companies are leaving London.

MediaCityUK

Is this Area for You?

Investing in commercial property in cities besides London has become common practice for a lot of businesses that are looking to keep their costs lower than the capital will allow. If lower costs are appealing to you, then Manchester is worth considering.

The population is expanding, and more and more people are choosing to move to the city. There is a great focus on Media in the city right now and there are four leading universities that have a graduate population for you to draw employees from.

Manchester has become a world-class city in which to live as well as base your business. It has a great airport and other transport links and, once the HS2 is built, the rail journey from Manchester to London will only be an hour.

The city has had rapid economic growth in the past few years and this growth is set to continue. This makes it a great choice for businesses, particularly media companies or businesses wanting to invest in property.



Anthea Taylor

About the author

Anthea Taylor is Content Producer at Dynamis and writes for all titles in the Dynamis stable including BusinessesForSale.com, FranchiseSales.com and PropertySales.com as well as other industry publications.

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