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Nearly 80% of UK developers work outside London

"The video games industry can play an important role in levelling up the economy"

Nearly 80% of UK developers work outside London

The South East of England accounts for most of the UK's games development workforce, according to TIGA.

The region is home to 22.4 per cent of devs, while London boasts 21.3 per cent, meaning almost 80 per cent of UK-based developers work outside of England's capital.

In third sits the North West with 11.8 per cent. Scotland and the West Midlands follow it in fourth and fifth with 10.7 per cent and 9.1 per cent, respectively. However, the former has seen a growth of 17 per cent across 18 months.

At the other end of the chart is Northern Ireland, as the region is home to 0.2 per cent of the UK's development workforce. Wales sits just ahead at 0.6 per cent.

However, the UK games industry is said to be growing at its fastest ever rate.

Helping the economy

"Almost 80 per cent of all games development staff in the UK are employed outside of London," said TIGA CEO Dr Richard Wilson.

"While just over a fifth of development staff are located in the South East of England, the third and fourth largest centres of games development by headcount are the North West of England and Scotland, respectively. Many of the UK's games development clusters boast excellent universities and a strong tradition of games development.

"The video games industry can play an important role in levelling up the economy. The sector provides high skilled employment in clusters throughout the UK. We need to strengthen local, regional and national games clusters across the UK by enhancing Video Games Tax Relief, introducing a Video Games Investment Fund and augmenting the UK Games Fund to improve access to finance, enhance access to high skilled developers, strengthen industry-university links and encourage more universities to achieve TIGA University Accreditation in order to nurture and promote local, regional and national games centres."


Staff Writer

Kayleigh is the Staff Writer for PocketGamer.biz. Besides PGbiz and PCGI she has written as a list writer for Game Rant, rambling about any and all things games related. You can also find her on Twitter talking utter nonsense.