Over the past few years, the North East of England has developed a thriving digital and creative media industry that the region can be proud of. Part of the reason for this success is down to the local hubs that have sprung up across the region. From Boho and Digital city in Middlesbrough, Sunderland Software City and the Ouseburn creative hub in Newcastle, the region has provided an excellent level of support to it’s growing and established creative and digital media businesses. 

Boho and Digital city

Created by One North East, the University of Teesside and Middlesbrough Council, Digital City has the aim of generating and sustaining a fast growing, high level economic base in the creative and digital sector for the Teesside area.

Digital City essentially consists of two main elements, The Institute of Digital Innovation and the Boho Zone. The Institute of Digital Innovation is located within the Phoenix Centre. It aims to provide support to digital academics allowing them to develop into successful entrepreneurs.

The Boho Zone provides space for new creative and digital businesses to “grow, network and do business”. According to their website, “Everything we do is geared to making North East the best place to develop your digital media, digital technology or creative business. Whether you’re an entrepreneur with a business idea, an established business looking to expand, a start up, one that’s looking to relocate or an organisation needing product development or finance, we’d love to work with you.”

Sunderland Software City

Sunderland Software city has similar aims to “Digital City” in Teesside, with more emphasis on software development rather than the creative digital media. There aim is to ‘…inspire and encourage the growth of the Software Industry in the North East of England, and to make the area an attractive location of choice for software businesses..” They are a public-private partnership of the City of Sunderland, the University of Sunderland, the North East Business and Innovation Centre, One NorthEast, Codeworks Connect and the private sector software industry.

Sunderland Software City currently operates out of a number of buildings across the city, but are looking to create a new state of the art environment at the heart of the city centre.

Ouseburn Creative Hub

The Ouseburn area to the West of Newcastle city centre was the cradle of the industrial revolution in Newcastle. For a long time it has also been the home to some of the most creative businesses in Newcastle and was the former home to the world famous Maling Pottery. In recent more digital and creative businesses have been moving into the area, and a variety of developments have sprung up to support them. Three of the more prominent developments include The Media Exchange, Hoults Yard and Maling Court.

“Mere Mortals” are a fine example of a world renowned digital media company that has made this are of Newcastle it’s home.

With these digital and creative media companies comes a high volume of digital data that needs to stored, manipulated and transferred. For this to be carried out effectively requires investment in systems and networks that are up to the task of dealing with such high volumes of data. 

Over the next few years it is hoped that the telecoms companies will be rolling out an extension of the fibre optic network in the region which will allow for easier and faster transfer of files between facilities. In the mean time it is still possible for businesses working in the creative and digital media sector in the north east to take advantage of cloud based services as a method of storing their data, backing it up and transferring it to and from clients and partners.

For more details of our services and how we can help your business, contact brownsman on 0191 500 6353 or email us at info@brownsman.com. 

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