160 jobs to be created at new tech centre in Hull

The new three-storey sister building for Hull’s Centre for Digital Innovation (C4DI) will create space for tech start-ups and rapidly-growing established digital businesses.

The 20,000 sq ft building developed by regeneration company Wykeland Group will expand Wykeland’s @TheDock tech campus in the Fruit Market creative quarter, of which C4DI is the centrepiece.

It will create around 160 new jobs and is supported with £1.294m from the Humber’s Local Growth Fund allocation, secured from the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

@TheDock is fully occupied, with many tech companies growing fast and in need of more space.

David Donkin, inset, property director of Hull-based Wykeland, said: “This new building will be much more than a place of work.

“It will complement the existing C4DI building and create the capacity and facilities to accelerate further the exciting growth of the tech economy in Hull and across the wider region.

“The building will offer a range of office sizes to meet pent-up demand from start-up, scale-up and established technology businesses that need space to grow, as well as shared spaces that support the spirit of community that enables creativity to flourish.

“As with the original C4DI it will be a place where tech businesses and traditional companies meet, collaborate and innovate.”

C4DI opened four years ago and around 200 start-up and scale-up tech firms are now based at C4DI or closely linked to it, as well as hundreds of digital specialists and freelancers.

John Connolly, managing director of C4DI, said: “The start of construction on this new building is exciting and very welcome.

“The development of this building highlights the growth of the sector and how the infrastructure, support and connectivity we have in Hull have accelerated the growth of businesses here in ways that would not have been possible elsewhere.”