EC1V is the UK’s hottest tech post code: Silicon Roundabout houses eight times more tech firms than nearest rival Silicon Canal
Silicon Roundabout’s EC1V is the UK’s hottest tech post code, as a survey of where tech companies are based reveals just how much the capital’s biggest tech hub outstrips its rivals around the country.
Being home to Silicon Roundabout, it’s no surprise that the East London post code is number one when it comes to housing tech firms. But just how ridiculously many – and by how much it blows away all competition – may come as a surprise.
Inner London is home to a fifth of the UK’s tech companies, nearly 40,000 across the city.
Just one post code, EC1V, is home to 3,228 tech firms per square kilometre.
This is 50 times more than the London average, and twice more even than the second-hottest tech post code, EC2A, which is just on the other side of the Old Street roundabout.
Andrew Bridges, managing director of Stirling Ackroyd, the estate agent which surveyed the companies, said:
There’s an entrepreneurial startup spirit to the Old Street area that’s creating its own gravitational force. Social media is the Bloomberg of the 21st century, HTML is our new lingua franca, and Shoreditch is fast becoming the Canary Wharf of the 2020s.
Silicon Roundabout boasts a density of tech firms more than eight times greater than even its closest rival, Manchester’s “Silicon Mill”.
Other tech hubs around the country fall far behind, with Birmingham’s “Silicon Canal” outstripped by a factor of 16 and Bristol’s “Silicon Gorge” by a factor of 20.
Perhaps most surprisingly, Tech City beats the world-renowned “Silicon Fen” in Cambridge no less than 73 times over.