£360m science and tech partnership to support more than 20,000 jobs

Bruntwood and Legal & General have established the UK’s largest science and technology partnership to promote science and technology growth in Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham.

The 50:50 partnership will see the two companies create a new company, Bruntwood SciTech, and invest £360m of “capital, property and intellectual assets”.

Bruntwood SciTech has a business plan to support the creation of more than 20,000 high-value jobs across Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham focussing on start-ups and scale-ups in high growth sectors, such as the Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain.

“Our vision is to help companies in Northern cities and the Midlands produce businesses that can start and scale. The tech giants – Facebook, Google, Amazon and others like them – all had to start somewhere and we see ourselves as part of the support system that will enable tech entrepreneurs and people with disruptive technologies to succeed,” said Bruntwood chief executive Chris Oglesby, who will chair the new venture.

“Bruntwood SciTech is aimed squarely at the many opportunities offered by the science and technology sector and with the backing of Legal & General we can greatly accelerate the scale and pace of what we can achieve.”

Bruntwood SciTech is aiming to grow its assets from 1.3m sqft on day one to more than 6.2m sq ft over the next 10 years, increasing the value of the portfolio to £1.8bn.

“Although the UK is a great place to do business, years of chronic underinvestment have led to poor productivity, inadequate real wage growth and muted economic growth. Science and technology will be key to revitalising the UK economy and driving job creation. We need to keep investing to support the development of our UK regional cities,” added Nigel Wilson, chief executive of Legal & General.

“Through our investment in Bruntwood SciTech, we are partnering with a best in class management team at Bruntwood with a track record of delivering and developing major science and technology projects across the UK’s regions.”

Buildings within the new operation include Manchester Science Park, Citylabs 1.0, Manchester Technology Centre, Circle Square, Alderley Park,  Platform (Leeds) and Innovation Birmingham.