Key facts

Overview
There are more than 400 firms in the technology sector in Wales,  with over 11,000 IT professionals work directly in the industry in Wales and a further 22,000 in IT functions across other industries.

Contribution to Welsh Gross Value Added per annum - 5.5%

Sub sectors - volume electronics manufacturing, niche-market manufacturing, semiconductors, software and IT.  Volume electronics is the largest sub-sector with 36% of total output by value.  Niche manufacturing accounts for 27% and semiconductor production is 9%.  Software and IT is a fast growing area now covering 20% of wealth created.

There are 20 Centres of Excellence for technology related sectors in Wales

Opportunities
Over £250 million in public sector outsourcing opportunities are expected by 2010. More than 1400 financial services companies are active in Wales, the biggest sector for IT procurement potential.

Companies
International IT companies who have established a strong presence in Wales include  Logica, Fujitsu Services, EDS, International Rectifiers, EADS, Sony and IBM.

People
Quality IT staff are widely available, and Wales offers exceptionally low turnover rates of 10% or lower.   Benefit from a mix of time-served staff, people returning to Wales for the high quality of life, and any of the 3500 graduates in IT-related disciplines that Welsh universities produce every year.

Research
The Welsh Assembly Government actively promotes and supports academic-industrial collaboration, for example through programmes such as:

• £50 million Institute of Life Sciences sponsored by IBM 
• £30 million Institute of Advanced Telecommunications 
• £25 million Centres of Excellence for Technology and Industrial Collaboration programme that connects companies to the latest developments on science, engineering and technology

Welsh universities have already established relationships with NASA, Orange, O2, Motorola, EADS and General Dynamics.

Property
Wales has a strong commercial property sector up to a third of the cost of London property, and offers a number of flexible, scalable facilities to provide a UK touchdown for new and incoming companies. This includes the £120 million Technium development of eight nationwide sites, which offers quality R&D and office space close to university departments. The @Wales incubation centre in Cardiff also offers single or multiple desks, with full support infrastructure, at competitive rates.

Data Storage
Wales is home to the BT International Data Centre in Cardiff Bay.  The £90 million data centre was purpose built to support the full range of BT hosting and managed service operations.  The state of the art facility is designed to be the premier provider of e-business solutions for the UK, putting Wales on the map as a key player amongst knowledge-based businesses.

To further expand Wales’ data centre proposition,  a £200M data centre project for South Wales, creating 100 hi-tech jobs, is underway.  Next Generation Data will establish one of Europe’s largest and most technically advanced “green” data centre at the site of the former LG Semicon plant at Newport.  The centre, which will total in excess of 70,000 square metres with approximately 21,000 square metres of data centre space available, will be sub divided for different uses including managed hosting, co-location and hotel type services. It is located near an electricity sub-station which will ensure that the facility has adequate power for the foreseeable future.