Sky Bet will take on 100 jobs after doubling workforce

The Leeds-based business has marked the second anniversary of its spinning out of Sky by announcing the new recruitment programme, having doubled its workforce in just two years.

With the addition of 200 new roles having recently being filled, the company has taken its total workforce up to 1,200.

The Yorkshire based company has made a total of 937 job offers and recruited 43 new graduates since Sky sold 80 per cent of the business to CVC Capital Partners in 2015.

Richard Flint, Sky Betting & Gaming’s chief executive, said: “I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved in the past two years as an independent company.

“Not only do we now have more UK customers than any other operator but we’ve also made a significant contribution to the region that we call home.

“Leeds has been a great place to grow our business and with continued investment from the Government in infrastructure and skills we are determined to keep playing our part in driving forward the Yorkshire tech economy.”

A total of 90 per cent of Sky Bet’s headcount is based in Yorkshire.

Since becoming independent its overall revenue has more than doubled from £183m at the end of the 2014 financial year 2014 to £374m at year-end 2016.

The firm is one of two Yorkshire-based tech firms classed as unicorns (defined as companies assessed as having a value in excess of $1bn).

A recent study from Oxford Economics valued its contribution to the Leeds economy as being £143m.

Included in this figure was a £63.5m tax contribution to government funding in 2014/15 a sum of money which equates to £12 per resident in Yorkshire, a figure large enough to be able to fund for the total cost of fire fighting and rescue operations of the West Yorkshire Fire & Rescue

The study showed the company also pays two percent of all wages in Leeds, with average salary rates 33 per cent above last year’s city average

In that time it has grown from having two sites to seven, supplementing its Leeds headquarters and Oddschecker office in London with a tech hub in Sheffield, a customer hub in central Leeds, offices in Italy and Germany and the acquisition of Solihull-based Core Gaming.

Sky Bet Italia launched in late 2016 and work is being done to launch a sportsbook in Germany later this year.