The Liverpool City Region has a vibrant, fast growing digital and creative sector which plays a significant role in contributing £1.7bn to the local economy.
According to 2020 ONS figures, output from the digital and creative sector across the city region grew by 41% from 2008 to 2018, compared with 33% growth in England.
With a substantial number of small businesses and sole traders in the sector across the Liverpool City Region, there are also several key hubs that are attracting digital, creative, and technology businesses to relocate and invest. These include Sci-Tech Daresbury – a designated enterprise zone, one of the UK’s primary science and technology campuses. While Baltic Creative is home to a thriving digital and creative sector in the vibrant Baltic Triangle area of Liverpool.
LCR Connect will deliver fast and resilient digital infrastructure across the six local authorities of the Liverpool City Region. It will support post pandemic recovery as well as underpin transformational innovation-led growth. Access to ultrafast connectivity is fundamentally important to this bandwidth hungry sector where increasingly high tech products are reliant on excellent upload and download speeds – such as video games development, augmented and virtual reality, and film and music. The ability to collaborate, share and transfer data is vital to harnessing creativity and innovation.
“A robust and futureproofed connection will help the 43% of business that have been in operation for five years or less to stay competitive and survive for longer. Over 90% of businesses in this sector employ fewer than 10 employees so as they grow they require a resilient network they can rely on and build their businesses on. There are pockets of digital and creative businesses in all six of our local authority areas and so linking all these areas means that no business is at a disadvantage from the availability of the digital infrastructure, wherever they choose to be based.”
Helen Cross, Digital & Creative sector lead, Growth Platform
Digital technology and the ability to use it permeates every aspect of our daily lives and has revolutionised the way we work. Improving digital skills is in essence about creating better alignment between the opportunities afforded by digital developments, the current and future needs of industry, and the ability of our local population to engage and thrive. Ultimately the productivity of our economy and ability to compete with other global locations is reliant on narrowing digital skills gaps.
