Sheffield on the Rise: Why Businesses and Start-Ups are Choosing the Steel City
As a PR consultancy based in Sheffield, we enthusiastically fly the flag for the city and its businesses.
It’s therefore heartening to read that more and more businesses are choosing to base themselves in Sheffield and start-up numbers are increasing.
In a recent article for Entrepreneur, Nick Thompson, co-founder and CEO of Sheffield-based robotics company BOW, explains why tech start-ups are ditching London for cities such as Sheffield.
The decision is being driven by more than just cost benefits, he says.
Thompson cites the region's manufacturing expertise, its emerging robotics and electronics sectors, and the fact that employers relocating or setting up in Sheffield can tap into to the best deep tech, robotics, and electronics talent in the UK. What better vote of confidence for the region’s universities and our new industrial future?
Sheffield’s Peace Gardens
A further thumbs-up for South Yorkshire came this week from insolvency and restructuring trade body R3, which reports a sizeable increase in the number of new start-ups across Yorkshire and Humber.
In the first month of 2025, R3, as reported in Yorkshire Business Insider, found a 35 per cent increase in new business start-ups in the region with insolvency-related activity falling by 30 per cent.
Both news articles signal tremendous positivity for the region and will only be strengthened when Sheffield rolls out its new branding designed to boost tourism and economic growth.
As an agency, we’re seeing increased interest from across the UK and regularly speak to businesses looking to move their PR operations out of London. It’s obvious that better value and the agility of a small, award-winning agency is a major driver, but so too is the recognition that Sheffield is going places.
Success attracts success and, as the late Steve Jobs once said, “The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
For the team at Altitude that starts with loving where we’re from.
To find out how Altitude can support your business’s growth, get in touch today.