With Ipswich and Chelmsford on its doorstep, it’s all too easy to overlook Colchester as a thriving business community but it’s home to almost 9,000 businesses (8,750 to be precise). In total, those businesses contribute an economy worth an estimated GVA of £4.43bn.
Colchester’s key business growth sectors include construction, green energy, care, tourism, and our personal favourites – digital and technology. As an employment hub for neighbouring towns, villages and boroughs, the City of Colchester offers considerable employment opportunities (in the many thousands).
A Strong Digital Ambition for Colchester
Colchester is not just physically accessible – it’s becoming far more digitally accessible to national and global markets. Colchester Borough Council and its partners are already working together on a multi-million pound investment into WiFi and Gigabit Ultrafast fibre broadband, and within the next two years, further 5G roll-out will see greater mobile speeds and connectivity than ever before.
Innovation & Growth at the University of Essex
Thanks to the University of Essex, Colchester is fast becoming a hot-bed of micro-businesses with ambitious growth plans. Located on the University’s Colchester campus is a thriving Innovation Centre, which provides flexible office space to rent, cowork from and host meetings and events. Businesses can also access complimentary mentoring and strategic business support as well as world-class research, resources and learning through the University.
Our friends at the Essex Chambers of Commerce are now based in Suite F3 at the Innovation Centre, where they host a wide variety of thought-provoking actionable business events and business support services.
One of the Best Places to Start a Business
According to research by business financial platform Tide, Colchester is one the top five places outside London to start a business in the UK.
We’re not at all surprised. Between 2018 and 2019 alone, there was a 27% increase in start-up businesses, and it seems the long-term prospects for businesses are also strong. After all, Tide’s research shows Colchester having an average five-year business survival rate of 44.94 per cent.
Of course, there are lots of challenges for businesses, particularly following the pandemic and now with the cost of living crisis. However, Colchester’s business community looks to be in a promising position to weather the storm.
We know this because we provide IT support and consultancy to lots of different sized businesses in and around the Colchester area. In doing so, we don’t just understand the pressures they face, we also see the opportunities that exist.
In our opinion, an IT partner should always be looking towards the future without taking its finger off the pulse of what’s happening here and now, and that’s where we excel.
If you’d like to know more about how we work and what makes our IT solutions different to more traditional IT Support companies, simply give us a call on 01206 700930 or email us at sales@agile-ts.net