Set up in Coventry
Surrounded by countryside, market towns, and quaint villages, the city of Coventry offers a perfect location for businesses to grow and innovate in the UK.
It’s a city of incredible regeneration and reinvention, constantly reinventing itself to meet the ever-changing demands of the 21st century. You’ll also find Silicon Spa – one of the UK’s largest games development clusters – and some of the UK’s best design and testing facilities for automotive, aerospace and rail innovation.
Connectivity
At the heart of the UK motorway network, Coventry is a central transport hub and part of the most connected region in the UK. It’s a great city to keep connected professionally and personally.
By rail, London is 1 hour away, with Manchester, Cambridge, and London Stansted reachable in under two by direct trains, while by car you can reach over 90% of the UK’s population within a four-hour drive.
By air from Birmingham Airport, which is just 20 minutes away by train from Coventry city centre, you can fly to 400 international destinations. East Midlands airport is also close, with London Heathrow only a 90-minute train journey away.
Coventry’s sector strengths
Coventry is the city where movement began. From pioneering the UK’s transport industry and automotive clusters to a city continuing to innovate, Coventry is driving forward the next generation of mobility, vehicle electrification and battery development. Locating your business in Coventry offers access to a unique manufacturing eco-system of OEMs, specialist supply chain and skills, with local expertise in prototyping and low volume build.
The city is also driving forward digital technology, building on a track record in engineering and manufacturing, and utilising a talent pool with exceptional skills and an excellent knowledge base. Coventry’s vibrant creative and digital sector features some of the UK’s most creative minds with strengths in design, software consulting, games development, digital marketing, Virtual and Augmented Reality, film-making and theatre.
Coventry is a leading UK city for:
- Advanced Manufacturing
- Automotive and Future Mobility
- Low Carbon & Energy
- Business, Professional and Financial Services (BPFS)
- Creative Industries
In good company
Proximity to supply chain and R&D manufacturing facilities has seen Coventry become the UK home to over 35 automotive OEM vehicle brands, including Aston Martin Lagonda, BMW, Geely London EV Company, Jaguar Land Rover, Lotus, Mecalac, PSA Peugeot Citroen Vauxhall, TATA Motors and Volvo Truck and Bus.
If your business is more VR than Jaguar, Leamington Spa’s globally significant cluster of video game developers – Silicon Spa – has over 40 studios, employing over 2500 directly and making up 15% of the UK games industry, with business incubator space for start-up and micro game development companies. Locating in the cluster would make you neighbours with companies including DCA Design, IBM, Kantar, Ragdoll Productions, Royal Shakespeare Company, PCMS, SEGA Hardlight, Ubisoft, Codemasters, and Playground Games.
Skills and talent
Nothing matters more than attracting and retaining the right talent for your business. Coventry’s deep and diverse talent pool and graduate pipeline are significant assets, growing each year. Fed by 67,700 students studying at Warwick and Coventry universities, producing 24,400 graduates per year, with 55% graduate retention in the region, you’re more likely to find the right people to develop and expand your business in Coventry and the West Midlands.
It’s not just a local talent pool, either. Coventry has high numbers of French, Polish and Urdu speaking students, offering businesses more than just English-speaking expertise.
- 102k educated to degree level – more than Nottingham and Newcastle
- 68k students studying at Coventry’s two universities
- 24k annual graduate pipeline
- 55% graduate retention rate (regional)
Quality of life in Coventry
Coventry is constantly evolving, particularly over the last two decades, where immense amounts of regeneration, investment and reinvention have completely transformed much of the city.
From city living to village dwelling, there’s plenty of choice in where to live, with a wide range of leisure options and visitor attractions nearby, from museums and historical sites to wide-open green spaces. Royal Leamington Spa was ranked the happiest place to live in Britain, scoring highly for friendly neighbours and a strong sense of belonging.
It’s one of the top five locations in the UK for fast and ultrafast full-fibre broadband, is only one of two UK cities that will have an all-electric bus fleet by 2025, and was recently ranked as the best place in the UK to own an electric car.
And that’s not all. The city is only 1 hour from London by train, boasts two of the best universities in the county, is home to both a professional football club and a Premiership rugby union team, has one of the fastest growing economies in the UK, and has just finished its year in May 2022 as the UK’s official City of Culture.
Enjoy a high-quality lifestyle for less
There are many reasons why more people migrate to Coventry from London (6,519 in 2020) than Manchester (4,303) and Leeds (3,990). So many companies increasingly choose to bring their businesses and their people here. Just some of those reasons include:
- Overall 60% better off living in Coventry when compared to London
- Coventry attracts around 10m visitors per year (STEAM, 2019)
- An area rich in culture and heritage – cathedrals, castles, museums and art galleries
- Network of local and country parks and excellent cycling
- Host several Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games events
We’ve identified three essential quality of life elements where Coventry and the West Midlands outperform other destinations in the UK, Europe, and the world, summarised simply as Live, Learn and Earn.
