Why invest in the Thames Valley?
The Thames Valley is the fastest-growing region in the UK outside of London. It encompasses companies from all over the world, covering a wide range of sectors, who are brought together in a connected business community. For this reason, the Thames Valley is considered to be the UK’s true ‘turbo-economy’, the ‘Silicon Valley of Europe’ and therefore, the place to be.
The Thames Valley is home to….
The world’s number one University
The University of Oxford has been recognised for seven consecutive years as the world’s best University.
The UK’s Highest Performing Cities
Oxford and Reading who are listed in PwC’s Good Growth for Cities Report as the highest performing cities for the fifth year in the row.
Heathrow Airport
The UK’s largest airport, handling over 80 million international passengers annually and flying to 206 worldwide destinations.
Rising GVA ahead of the UK
Thames Valley is expected to exceed the UK’s growth with forecast Gross Value Added (GVA) growth of 9.40% between 2019 and 2025.
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Best Performing Location
Windsor and Maidenhead listed as UK’s best performing locations in LSH Vitality Index 2022.
The Best Place to Work
Slough named the best place to work in the UK based on its ease of finding a job, relatively high average salaries in comparison to living costs, employee satisfaction and cost of housing.
A wealth of visitor and heritage sites
Oxfordshire
Home to the number one University in the world, Bicester Village, Harwell Campus and Blenheim Palace.
Buckinghamshire
Home to Pinewood Studios, Silverstone, Cliveden House and Waddesdon Manor.
As the fastest-growing region outside of London and a much more cost-effective alternative, the Thames Valley offers great potential for growth.
It also boasts some impressive statistics:
The Thames Valley economy is worth £83,848 million, bigger than 11 of the EU’s 28 member states, including Hungary, Luxembourg and Bulgaria.
The region’s economy is expected to be larger in 2023 than 2019, with an annual GVA growth forecast of 0.39%, with Reading forecast to rise ahead of London with 0.58% GVA.
Employment rates are forecast to grow (0.31%) above the South East average by 2023 in the Thames Valley.
70% of international companies setting up in the UK for the first time will locate within one hour of Heathrow Airport.
Find out more about the region’s thriving economy from the following reports.
EY’s Regional Economic Forecast
The Thames Valley is set to be one of the strongest performing regions over the next three years, highlighting a 0.60% predicted growth in Gross Value Added (GVA), higher than London (0.51%) and the South East (0.39%) region as a whole. Click on the report to find out more.
“The report provides evidence that the Thames Valley is the UK’s true ‘turbo-region’ with an array of significant resilient sectors, including life sciences, technology and clean tech, which will be one of the key areas of focus and opportunity for the UK’s zero carbon aspirations.”
Paul Britton, CEO of the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce
PwC’s Good Growth for Cities Report
Oxford and Reading have topped the index for the past six years, this year ranking first and fourth respectively. The Buckinghamshire towns of High Wycombe and Aylesbury were placed 7th. A total of fifty cities were included in the 2022 index.
The PWC Good Growth for Cities Index provides an informed and intelligent bell-weather for the performance of UK cities and towns and to reflect some of the more obvious issues highlighted by the pandemic, the 2022 Index includes two new indicators covering safety and the vibrancy of local high streets.
“The strong performance of both Oxford and Reading in the PwC Good Growth for Cities index follows increasing levels of available jobs, growing incomes, and a diversity of skills.”
John Ellis, PwC Reading Office Senior Partner
Click on the report to find out more
Click on the report to find out more
fDi’s European Cities and Regions of the Future 2022/23 Report
Cities and towns from across the Thames Valley scored highly in an array of categories for the annual fDi Magazine report on Europe’s Top Cities and Regions of the Future for 2022/23.
Small European Cities of the Future Overall: Reading (3rd); Small European Cities of the Future – Economic Potential: Reading (8th); Small European Cities of the Future – Human Capital / Lifestyle: Oxford (2nd); Small European Cities of the Future – Connectivity: Slough (1st); Small European Cities of the Future – Business Friendliness: Reading (2nd), Slough (3rd)
Micro European Cities of the Future 2022/23 – Overall: Newbury (6th), Maidenhead (8th); Micro European Cities of the Future 2022/23 – Economic Potential: Newbury (7th), Maidenhead (10th); Micro European Cities of the Future – Human Capital / Lifestyle: Windsor (1st); Micro European Cities of the Future – Connectivity: Maidenhead (6th), Newbury (10th); Micro European Cities of the Future – Business Friendliness: Maidenhead (5th), Newbury (6th)
Key sector strengths
Technology
The UK is a significant market opportunity for inward investors and at its heart – the Thames Valley – is one of its most important clusters of innovative, high-growth, IP-rich companies across the full range of tech sub-sectors.
Oxford listed as one of the top 20 European Investment Tech Cities
Berkshire has 600+ tech start-ups p.a.
Largest mega-cluster of data centres in Europe
More than 8,000 technology-led companies based in the region
Life Sciences
Within the Thames Valley, the Life Sciences and Healthcare (LSH) sector is one of the most important benefitting from a number of world leading academic institutions and industry centres of excellence.
Heart of the ‘Golden Trianlge‘ LSH cluster
More than 135 LSH companies based in the region, with 8,000 employees
Leading medical research institutes, 5 UK Academic Heath Science Centres
University of Oxford ranked No. 1 in Clinical, Pre-Clinical and Health (8th year)
The Thames Valley is the second engine of growth of the UK economy, outside of London and that’s for good reason – the Thames Valley is going to be the fastest-growing region through to 2020 and Reading, at the centre of the Thames Valley is going to be the fastest growing UK city for the next 5 years.
Simon Greenstreet, Head of Communications, Bayer
