With Manchester now ‘recognised’ as the UK’s second ‘creative and digital’ capital, what does that mean for Bristol?

Here’s a recent article from New Media Age Magazine, which certianly should give Bristol food for thought.

Manchester likes to claim credit for the invention of the computer, with the first stored programme being run in the city on 21 June 1948. But 13 June 2007 may come to be seen as the second most important date in the history of Manchester’s digital sector.

Last week the BBC finally signed the deal to move five departments from London to the Mediacity:uk development in Salford Quays, a move that many expect will catalyse the transformation of the digital sector not just in Greater Manchester but across the north of England.

But it would be wrong to see Mediacity just in terms of the BBC. Iain Bennett, digital and creative industry sector leader for the North West Regional Development Agency (NWDA), says, “The growth of the sector in Greater Manchester will happen faster and in a more spectacular way because of Mediacity, but it’s building on what’s there already.”

Mike Ryan, MD of Manchester-based technical agency Idaho, adds, “The BBC is an interesting anchor for Mediacity, but that’s all. The other tenants will be what makes it buzz, and the BBC will be what draws them there.”

Manchester’s digital sector is thriving. According to Bennett, if it weren’t for London, the North West would be the biggest digital and creative cluster in Europe. The sector employs 320,000 people in the region, working for 31,000 businesses. And it contributes £15.8bn in gross value added a year. The Manchester Digital Development Agency, which is funded by the NWDA, the City Council and the European Regional Development Fund, says the sector has been going through a growth phase for the past two years. It’s certainly what prompted Google to set up a sales office there.

“The Manchester scene is very healthy,” says Andrew Barke, senior agency relationship manager at Google. “There are great agencies up here and a lot of people who really understand what online is all about. I’ve been working with Manchester agencies for the past six years and the growth has been phenomenal.”

Ryan sits on the board of Manchester Digital, the region’s independent trade association for the ICT industries. He points to the organisation’s health as a measure of that of the sector itself. “Manchester Digital is now financially independent for the first time in its history,” he says, “and our tenth Big Chip awards earlier this year were the most successful ever.”

Others are only slightly less bullish. Tony Foggett is co-founder of Manchester-based full-service agency Code Computerlove, which counts HMV, Waterstone’s and Kimberly Clark among its clients. He sees the digital agency sector growing, but not dramatically.

“When people ask me about the temperature of the sector here, I say it’s still lukewarm,” he says. "There haven’t been many new agencies emerging; it has been the older agencies that have stayed at the top and grown. How many agencies have grown out of Manchester to become truly national agencies?

“There ought to be a lot more competition for an agency like us. The city has a terrific creative output, and in media terms it punches well above its weight, but that’s not necessarily the case in digital,” he adds.

Lyn Barbour is director of the Creative Industry Development Service (CIDS) in Manchester. This is helping to create a communications infrastructure for businesses in the sector and also has a strategic role, gathering data about the sector to influence where public-sector bodies spend their money. Barbour says she has seen substantial growth over the past five years in the number of small businesses in the digital sector, but now many of them are in the position of wondering where they go next.

“It’s difficult setting up a company, but the challenge they face now is equal to that,” she says. “Digital businesses have been able to expand because it’s a new market and they’ve been working within a narrow geographic area. Now they’re looking at wider markets, there’s more competition and the market has become more sophisticated. But there are opportunities opening up and Mediacity is putting the focus on the region. It’s a great place to be right now.”

Talent search

Ask anyone what’s holding the city back, though, and you’ll get the same answer: recruitment.

“The biggest problem is the skills shortage,” says Idaho’s Ryan. “There’s plenty of work, but we could all do with more skilled people. It’s the same as in London. The dotcom bust meant that people didn’t train anyone for two or three years, and now we’re paying the price.”

Barbour believes things are actually worse in the North than in the capital. “The skills pool is bound to gravitate towards London, making the problem worse elsewhere,” she says. “It’s hard to pin down what the specific skills shortages are, since so many are needed. All that we know is that they’re at the middle-management level, rather than the graduate level. I think it’s a gap in timing; there will be people coming through in due course, but not yet, or at least not in sufficient numbers.”

According to Barbour, the first challenge for Manchester is to keep the best graduates from the local universities and offer them opportunities locally. The second challenge is to keep them in the city beyond a couple of years when they’ve had their horizons broadened.

Code’s Foggett agrees and is critical of local universities and colleges for failing to make sure there’s a link between academia and industry. But he’s even more critical of the lack of appropriate courses in the city in the first place.

“I sit on the education group that Manchester Digital set up a few months back to audit what there is up here, and there isn’t very much,” he says. "There’s the BA and MSc digital marketing courses at the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, but there’s no three-year creative course since the Met closed its down.

“The City College has a two-year foundation degree, which is good, but this is a complicated medium and creatives need time to study it. From an industry point of view, the universities are really letting us down.”

This is one of the key areas where Mediacity is expected to make a difference.

“We have a substantial and diverse sector here, but it hasn’t reached the critical mass to be self-sustaining,” says Barbour. “Mediacity will create that, so skills issues will become less acute. It’ll help enable people to have a meaningful career in new media in Manchester.”

Ryan agrees. “Mediacity will be the most converged place in the country in four to five years’ time, and hopefully that will mean people with the required skills moving to Manchester,” he says. “At the same time, I think we’ll see very different employment patterns, with a lot more freelancers, for example.”

Kate Drewett is founder of Moonfish, one of the first digital agencies to be established in the city. She thinks Mediacity, and the BBC’s move there, will be great for digital’s skills base.

“The BBC bringing its own people up here increases the talent pool and gives them the chance to have a better career,” she says. “It also focuses the colleges on the skills needed.”

Mediacity isn’t just about attracting new companies and workers to Manchester. It’s also about improving the education and training available to those already there. Jason Leggett, interim programme director at Mediacity, highlights initiatives like the Sector Skills Productivity Alliance, which is setting out a strategy for skills development.

“Then there are 16 universities coming together to fine-tune proposals to develop a media research and knowledge transfer centre in Mediacity,” he says. “There’s a huge opportunity to attract key academic centres to the site, and not just from the UK. They could be from the US or Germany, for example.”

One university that’s well advanced in its plans to be involved in Mediacity is Salford. According to James Powell, pro-vice-chancellor for academic enterprise, detailed discussions are already underway for the university to move its Faculty of Arts, Media and Social Science – some 4,500 students – to Mediacity. And the university is already working on three projects with BBC Research & Development, which Powell says is expected to be one of the first departments to move to Manchester.

Look North

As for the BBC, it’s keen to stress there’s much to be worked out before the planned relocation in 2011. According to Jonathan Kingsbury, head of external supply at BBC Future Media & Technology, the end of the year will see detailed plans in place. But he confirms that his department will have a presence in Mediacity and that director of new media Ashley Highfield is keen that it should have a big impact on both the local digital sector and on the BBC itself.

“Even if Manchester wasn’t happening, we’ve recognised there’s a whole range of talent and business opportunities in the North,” says Kingsbury. “There’s a creative corridor that stretches from Liverpool across to Newcastle. My objective in the next year is to stretch our contractor base outside the M25, and that corridor is an area I’m focusing on.”

At the NWRDA, Bennett too is keen to stress the regional and national importance of Mediacity. “It’s given a real boost to the creation of a new kind of business, and to closing the north/ south divide through industry,” he says. “It’s also important to note that this isn’t Manchester versus London. It’s the North West working with London to the benefit of both, and of the whole country. We’re already in conversations across the North and we’re starting them with London, but we’re not looking for London businesses to move up here. The strategy doesn’t rely on poaching businesses from London.”

And in Manchester itself, there’s genuine excitement about the future. Lynne McCadden is MD of Northwest Vision+Media, part of the regional screen agency network. She says that within the agency, digital is the biggest opportunity. “We’re all very excited about this and we’re quite determined that we’re going to exploit it as much as possible.”

Quick Take n The digital sector in Manchester is thriving. The North West claims to be Europe’s biggest digital and creative cluster outside London n The Mediacity:uk development in Salford Quays, which will house five BBC departments, is expected to give the area’s digital sector a further boost n However, the area is also suffering a skills shortage n Digital specialists want to see more courses from local universities, but Mediacity will also house a media research and knowledge transfer centre

Moving into Mediacity

Mediacity:uk is one of a number of creative and media hubs being built around the world, in cities such as Dubai, Singapore and Seoul. The 200-acre site in Manchester’s Salford Quays will eventually house the northern arm of the BBC, a recording studio for the BBC Philharmonic, a commercial studio complex, a waterfront piazza, floating stages for theatre and concerts and a visitor destination. It will also be home to academic establishments and, according to developer Peel Holdings, will create space for 1,150 media, creative and related businesses. The BBC’s five departments are expected to form less than 10% of the overall population of around 15,500. “Media cities are designed to attract and retain creative people,” says Mediacity:uk chief executive Felicity Goodey. “This isn’t just about the BBC, but the BBC is the catalyst that unlocks the development.”

Author: Michael Nutley, New Media Age, August 2007