Austin and four other cities are better for tech businesses than London
Fresh from a string of reports saying London is the best place for tech – and who are we to disagree – the capital has a rival… or five.
Austin in Texas is the top city in the world for tech businesses, along with five others across the globe leaving London in a lowly sixth place, according to Savills.
San Francisco, the traditional home of tech and Silicon Valley, knows how London feels, being relegated into second place by the Texan capital. Tel Aviv, New York and Stockholm, also bowed to Austin but beat London.
On the survey – which measured five different areas of doing business – London scored low when it comes to property costs compared to the rest of the 12 cities, suggesting it could be a prohibitive cost to doing business in the city for tech firms.
The research looked at business environment, tech environment, quality of life, talent pool and property affordability to come up with an overall score. Austin provides just the right favourable combination to take the top spot ahead of the usual global leaders, including London.
The city, sometimes called the Silicon Hills, is home to Fortune 500 firm Dell’s headquarters and a host of other offices for tech giants. That includes offices for Apple, Google, Cisco, eBay and PayPal, Facebook, Oracle, Samsung, and soon, Amazon.
It's also an attractive location to startups with the University of Texas supplying talent and friendly tax rates for businesses.