Cambridge is home to one of the highest concentrations of technology companies in the world. Famous for the recent £6.5Bn sale of Autonomy to HP, Cambridge is continuing to cement its place as the UK’s Leading Hi-Tech Cluster as a new report from Startup Intelligence (Cambridge: from the lab to the limelight) shows.

The report, launched today at “Silicon Valley Comes to Cambridge”, shows growth in employment in many new hi-tech sectors such as opto-electronics and environmental technologies, strong rises in house prices throughout 2010, unemployment at 2.1% (way below the national average of 7.9%) and employment in the R&D sector at 18 times the national average.

For the first time Cambridge is beginning to grow companies large enough to sway global markets. The typical Cambridge technology company is still quite small, with an average of 29 employees. But the companies known as the ‘Big 4’ – ARM, Autonomy, CSR and Domino, together with antibodies company Abcam, employ almost 2,500 people in the region, twice as many as they did in 2004.

The report points to why Cambridge is bucking the trend. Cambridge benefits from a unique mix of characteristics that make it one of the world’s most advanced technology clusters: the world’s top University creating a pool of superb academic talent, from around the world, with 7,000 graduate students at any one time, a compact network of institutions and associations that foster innovation and support entrepreneurship and some of Britain’s most successful entrepreneurs turned angel investors who are keen to fuel the new generation of ‘Made in Cambridge’ successes, all within a 20-mile radius.

Cambridge is also diverse: it has “a unique technology entrepreneurial ecosystem”. Local companies include leaders in biotechnology, medical technology, gaming, audio, semiconductors, materials and printing. New startups are blurring the boundaries between sectors such as engineering and biotechnology and are becoming more ambitious to solve mass-market problems.

Technology firms play a larger role in the economy of Cambridge than of any other UK city. The greater region hosts 27,500 businesses, employing more than 700,000 people. Their contribution to the local economy is estimated to be worth over £12 billion. There are now 1,500 technology firms in the city alone, employing around 40,000 people – even though between 1988 to 2008, 42% of all high-growth companies in the cluster were acquired.

The report shows how Cambridge is a hidden engine powering the UK economy. But with so many high-technology firms concentrated in such a small area, why can’t most people name even a handful of successful Cambridge companies? The main reason is that these companies tend to sell to other businesses. They develop state-of-the-art technologies and components that fit into other technology companies’ supply chains, so visibility is low while impact and value are high. Cambridge is bucking the trend and the economic downturn; it’s time to put it in the limelight.

The full report, “Cambridge: from the lab to the limelight”, is available as a pdf from www.cambridgestartupreport.com and from www.startupintelligence.net/cambridge

Press contacts:

David Cleevely : david.office@cleevely.co.uk
Sherry Coutu : sherry@coutu.com
Sue Smith : sue.smith@cleevely.co.uk, phone 07795 9474656

Note: MARKET CAP FOR TOP CAMBRIDGE COMPANIES:

ARM £8.39Bn
Autonomy £6.23Bn
Aveva £1,095.73m
Abcam £645.12m
Domino £622.34m