Scaleup programmes
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Cambridge Cluster Insights [2022]
Infrastructure
Impact for scaleups
90,000
Companies identified
194
Scaleups identified in 2021
57.7%
Turnover increase of life science scaleups
29,609
Employment of scaleups
£4bn
Turnover of scaleups
35.3%
Employment increase of ICT scaleups
Key sectors
Cambridge Cluster Insights gives a picture of growth and economic health across the sub-region over eleven years and now includes over 90,000 companies and limited partnerships. Designed by the University of Cambridge in partnership with entrepreneurs, the tool supports scaling businesses in Cambridge and 14 neighbouring local authority districts to attract talent, customers and investors from the UK and overseas. Data and research from Cambridge Cluster Insights shapes and informs business support development and delivery across the region.
The latest update – published in March 2022– captures the effects of the second and third Covid lockdowns. The picture is one of continued and faster employment growth in Greater Cambridge driven by a strong performance in Knowledge Intensive (KI) sectors while non-KI sectors showed more modest growth. Life sciences and ICT sectors in the area continued showing their importance as engines of employment growth even at times of business and economic uncertainty. Turnover resumed its pre-pandemic pattern of showing a higher growth than employment.
In the past year the programme completed three employment update studies, commissioned by the Greater Cambridge Partnership and Cambridge Ahead, creating an accurate and timely analysis of employment changes during the pandemic. It also enriched their employment database, by conducting a survey of the main non-corporate KI research institutions in the Cambridge region to gather their latest employment data.
In 2021, 194 scaleups were identified in the area, contributing £4bn to the local economy and employing 29,609 people. Scaleups in the ICT sector saw a 35.3% increase in turnover while those in the life sciences show 57.7% growth in turnover.
