Manchester’s rapidly changing skyline might be the city’s most visible sign of transformation, but beyond the cranes and growing number of glass towers, a more important story is unfolding on the ground.
From ambitious start-ups and emerging university spinouts to homegrown scale-ups, Greater Manchester is now home to more than 10,000 digital and tech companies, including 1,500 high-growth firms, spread across everything from swish city-centre offices to labs and coworking spaces.
And that growth isn’t just coming from local players. Over the past five years, inward investment from outside the UK has seen 41 companies, including IBM, Roku, Booking.com, and Accenture, expand or relocate into the city region, creating an estimated 2,360 jobs across software, AI and data, cyber, IT services, ecommerce, and fintech, according to Invest Manchester.
“Our tech sector is growing within a regional economy benefitting from devolution, political stability and coordination between Greater Manchester policymakers, institutions and business,” explains Joseph Beadon, Head of Inward Investment for Creative, Digital & Technology at Invest Manchester.
“Devolved, place-based governance means we can target investment into AI, cyber and digital innovation via major programmes and innovation zones aligned with the UK’s industrial strategy.
“This environment has attracted global technology companies while also enabling locally rooted firms to grow, creating a self-reinforcing ecosystem where skills, capital and innovation feed into one another.”
That buzz is felt by a number of founders moving to the city to tap into this growth. “Manchester isn’t just a tech hub, it’s a place trying to solve the future of health and care, and that’s where we need to be,” says Shain Khoja, founder of healthtech start-up Thriving AI, who recently relocated her business from Middlesex.
Khoja is one of several leaders we spoke to as part of Prolific North’s GRAFT Regional Champions series, supported by accountancy firm MHA and Vista Insurance, exploring what’s really driving Greater Manchester’s tech growth.
So we’ve taken a closer look at where some of that growth is emerging, from why businesses are choosing the city, to what’s driving start-up and scale-up activity, and what tech leaders believe still needs to improve.
From start-ups to global players
Autotrader is one company that has grown alongside Manchester over the past decade. The firm’s people and culture director, Christos Tsaprounis, describes the city as “instrumental” to its success.
Now a FTSE 100 business, Autotrader employs around 900 people in the city, including 400 in product and technology roles. The business also recently relocated its HQ to Bruntwood SciTech’s No.3 Circle Square, which Tsaprounis calls “a natural next step and a strategic investment” to be close to other “innovators” and encourage deeper collaboration.
“We’ve always had a deep connection to Manchester and it has helped shape who we are as a business. It has enabled us to work side-by-side with partners, share learnings, data and insights, and have access to exceptional tech talent. Ultimately, it puts us at the centre of an ecosystem that drives the future of technology.”
While he credits Manchester for its “diverse pool” of tech talent, Autotrader is also investing in the next generation through its own graduate and apprenticeship schemes. He says this approach needs to be “adopted at scale” to truly meet industry demand.
“Our long-term commitment to Manchester places us in a position to attract and retain the very best tech talent for the coming decade.”
Manchester’s tech growth is “driven” by talent, says Joseph Beadon at Invest Manchester, who describes the region’s “quality of life and cultural scene” as a magnet for attracting and retaining people.
That pull for top talent isn’t limited to homegrown success stories. Over the past five years, companies like Roku and Booking.com have chosen Manchester as a “strategic base”, with Roku now located just a stone’s throw from Autotrader at No.1 Circle Square to be close to “world-leading academic institutions”.
While Circle Square may now be a “thriving tech hub”, as Tsaprounis puts it, Manchester’s tech ecosystem stretches far beyond a single postcode, spanning sectors, neighbourhoods, and clusters.
Cyber, collaboration, and scale
The cyber sector offers a clear example of Manchester’s tech growth. Now “anchored” by GCHQ’s strategic hub in the city, an estimated 176 cyber businesses employ around 5,800 people.
Cybersecurity start-up Aruga Cyber, founded by two military veterans, is part of the growing community at the Greater Manchester Digital Security Hub (DiSH), which launched in 2022 to support start-up digital and cybersecurity businesses.
“It’s easy to get things moving here, whether that’s hiring, building relationships or getting in front of the right people,” explains David Taylor, co-founder and managing director of Aruga Cyber.
“There’s less friction than you would find in other places. There’s also a strong sense of collaboration in the region. People are open to making introductions and sharing insight, which makes a real difference when you are building something.”
That collaborative culture is something more established firms have also leaned into. Since 2005, FourNet, backed by Palatine Private Equity, has built much of its growth from its Manchester base.
“We’ve used M&A to add capability, but the real progress has come from integrating that into a single offer and growing through existing relationships. That’s where the value is. Manchester has been central to that,” says Richard Pennington, founder and CEO of FourNet.
“It’s where we’ve built a strong delivery base across consulting, engineering and managed services, and that’s what allows us to operate in the kind of environments we do.”
With 70 staff based in Manchester, Pennington also points to a noticeable shift in mindset.
“Previously, young people felt they needed to move to London to become successful, but we are genuinely seeing more developing skills and experience available within Manchester now.”
AI, healthtech, and fintech
If there is one subsector powering much of Manchester’s tech growth right now, its AI and data. The region’s growing number of AI companies are now collectively valued at $4.2bn, employing 13,500 people, with three local universities establishing dedicated research groups in AI and data science.
You can see that growth in companies themselves. There’s Peak, which started out as an idea scribbled on a pub napkin in 2015 before its meteoric rise led to an acquisition by global tech giant UiPath last year. While Matillion, a Manchester founded AI-powered data integration and productivity company which is dual headquartered in Denver, is now considered a ‘tech unicorn’, with its valuation of over $1bn.
You can also see that growth in the next wave of budding businesses, from Decently’s AI-powered brain injury prediction solution to Arcube’s airline loyalty platform now taking flight.
And sitting somewhere in between is AI-powered legaltech solution Summize. Founded in 2018, the business recently raised £40m to ramp up its global expansion, now with two offices in San Diego and Boston.
“Manchester is a city that values substance over noise,” says Tom Dunlop, co-founder and CEO of Summize. “There’s a strong bias toward building something that actually works rather than something that just looks good in a pitch. We focused early on solving real problems, proving adoption, and making the model repeatable before thinking about scale.
“There’s also a huge advantage in the talent here. Manchester has a deep pool of people who are comfortable operating in fast-moving environments and taking ownership early. That’s critical when you’re scaling a business.”
Healthtech is following a similar trajectory, supported by the largest clinical academic campus in Europe. For Shain Khoja, founder of Thriving AI, the region’s rich mix of health and social care providers is a major benefit to her business.
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“It is one of the few places where health, social care, and innovation are receiving greater attention,” she explains. “The fact that the 10 hospitals in the region are collectively looking at testing, procuring and fixing issues through the Manchester Foundation Trust provides some opportunity to engage at a systems level.”
That access to decision-makers, combined with supportive networks like the Turing Innovation Catalyst Accelerator and the Innovate UK Business team, has helped her business make “more progress” in the past year since relocating to the city.
From start-up energy to scale-up reality
Healthtech start-ups are just part of the story as research spinouts are turning their ideas from Manchester’s universities into tech businesses that have secured 198 venture capital deals over the past five years, according to The Global Innovation Index. But whether it’s start-ups or spinouts, the bigger question is what happens when these businesses are ready to scale.
“Perhaps what is unique about us is that we’ve built with global intent from day one,” says Tom Dunlop from Summize. “We never saw ourselves as a UK business that might expand internationally later.
“The problems we’re solving, around contracts, workflows, and adoption, are the same in Manchester, London, Boston, or San Diego. That mindset changes how you build and how you sell from the very beginning. It’s easy to win a handful of customers locally, but scaling globally requires a model that works consistently no matter the market. We focused heavily on proving that before accelerating.”
For David Taylor from Aruga Cyber, while there is plenty of support for early-stage businesses, there isn’t much support for scaling companies.
“That includes access to growth capital, but also access to people who have scaled companies before. That’s probably the biggest gap at the moment. Helping businesses move from early traction into something more established.”
Emma-Louise Fusari, founder of workplace wellbeing platform In-House Health, agrees. Since moving to the city from Glasgow 28 years ago, while she praises the “collaborative” nature of Manchester’s tech ecosystem, there are “too many” early-stage support and accelerator programmes.
“There’s strong early-stage support, but too much advice comes from people who haven’t built or scaled a business. There needs to be more next-stage guidance from founders who’ve been there before.”
For Richard Pennington from FourNet, lots of businesses are “very good at building something interesting”, but scaling is a different challenge.
“Growth ambition and the discipline needed to achieve scale are important,” he explains. “Funding plays a role, along with access to advisors, but the bigger gap is often experience – people who’ve actually done that transition before. The more we can support that step change from product to scalable business, the better.”
For advisors like Michelle Mullany and Russell Cooper from MHA, Manchester’s tech growth is being driven by talent, connectivity, and cost advantages.
“The region’s relatively lower operating costs, access to top talent, and a rapidly expanding scale‑up community create ideal conditions for ambitious tech companies to accelerate,” they explain.
But the most common pitfalls the duo often see revolve around the businesses that scale “too fast” without the right foundations. MHA helps businesses put the right structures in place, from financial reporting to navigating complex tax areas, such as R&D.
And as those businesses grow, so do the risks. “We do a lot of hand-holding with tech and life science companies,” says Darci Edwards, head of tech and life science at Vista Insurance. “They’re focused on building a product, so insurance is often the last thing on their minds.”
“At each stage of growth, there are different risks. It’s about being prepared for them, because some people aren’t, and they think the insurance policy that they’ve got will continue to cover them through growth, which isn’t the case.”
Vista Insurance helps tech companies to get “match fit and prepared”, from ensuring they have insured their intellectual property before investment, to supporting companies through each stage of growth.
“Manchester is just rapidly growing all the time. For us, it’s trying to get in with those early-stage businesses and help them as they develop.”
What happens next
Manchester’s tech ecosystem has a growing track record for pumping out successful businesses across AI, data, healthtech, cyber all the way through to fintech, and continues to attract the attention of international tech firms. But what’s still missing?
For Shain Khoja, Manchester has “all the ingredients” for a growing tech ecosystem but better coordination is needed.
“There are great innovations here, but global leadership comes from showing real, large-scale implementation and outcomes. This means showcasing success stories and accelerating the scaling pathway,” she says.
“There’s strong early-stage support, but scaling companies need access to larger pools of capital and later-stage investors to grow globally from here. The investor scene is good but, in my opinion, not strong enough to support the great problems in health and social care. If Manchester can look to address these points it could become a global leader in the future of health and care.”
Mullany and Cooper from MHA also highlight those funding gaps: “Access to growth capital remains uneven and many Northern founders still feel they need to ‘work twice as hard’ to secure the same level of investment that Southern companies receive. Closing this funding gap is critical for sustaining growth at scale.”
While David Taylor points to the opportunity for the region’s cyber sector. “Manchester has a real opportunity to lead in how cyber security is applied across sectors such as infrastructure, healthcare, and industry. The barrier is that the industry still tends to overcomplicate things. That slows decisions down and makes it harder for organisations, particularly mid-sized businesses, to take action.
“The companies and regions that keep things simple and focus on outcomes will be the ones that move fastest.”
But Tom Dunlop sums it up best: “Manchester has all the raw ingredients: strong talent, a growing tech community, and a real bias toward building. What’s still developing for other companies is the confidence to think and operate on a global scale earlier.
“Too many still treat international expansion as a later-stage decision, rather than something to design for from the start. The more founders who build with that mindset from day one, the more we’ll see Manchester produce truly global businesses.”
