Warren Gibson, divisional lead for Profiles Creative – a recruitment agency specialising in the creative and digital industries – believes there’s always going to be a “gravitational pull” towards London for some people.

He said: “It’s similar to the great American dream but I find that there’s a lot of Northerners in London that are starting to make the move back from London quicker than they would have done maybe in the late 90s.”

Profiles Creative was launched in 2002 and today has 46 staff. The recruitment agency launched in Manchester and Leeds two years ago. Mr Gibson, originally from Essex, was chosen to help lead the growth in North.

Window of opportunity: Warren Gibson says more talent is being retained in the North as a result of a growth in opportunities. Picture: Bruce Rollinson

He told The Yorkshire Post: “Leeds and Manchester, as you can imagine, is a slightly smaller market but the quality of agencies and the people within the businesses is extremely strong.

“The big question was, having worked in London with arguably the best of the best across the globe creatively, is the quality going to be as strong up here? Actually it is.”

In recent years there has been a “massive shift” in people staying in or relocating back to the North, says Mr Gibson.

He added: “People are specifically moving to Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Hull, Sheffield and Liverpool for jobs.

“There are huge, desirable businesses and markets there that people want to be involved with. The brain drain has slowed down massively.”

Channel 4’s move to Leeds demonstrates the growing opportunities in the region, according to Mr Gibson.

He said: “Everyone is assuming and hoping it will have the same impact as Media City has had in Salford. To a certain extent I think it will.

“It just proves that life doesn’t begin and end in London. There’s more out there past the ever-present Watford Gap.”

As well as finding strong candidates to fill the right roles, Mr Gibson also faces the task of finding clients that have similar values.

He said: “The biggest challenge is finding businesses that, when I’m selling the job to a candidate, I believe in because there’s only so far you can go if you don’t believe in the business that you’re trying to sell to a candidate.”

While there has been a lot of talk about skills deficits, Mr Gibson believes that it’s certain sectors such as development and coding that are mainly impacted.

Universities are producing the talent needed for the creative sector, says Mr Gibson, however some of these graduates lack commercial awareness.

He said: “One of the biggest things for us as a business when working with graduates is sometimes a lack of commercial awareness.

“The creativity is absolutely fantastic and the talent is immense, sometimes even better than people who have been in the industry for a few years, but sometimes people lack the awareness on the commercial side such as time constraints and budgetary constraints that they have.”

A new avenue for workers

Warren Gibson moved to co-working space Avenue HQ in December.

The office space in Leeds has provided him with access to other businesses that enjoy synergies with Profiles Creative.

He said: “One of the big things for myself is it gives you an office environment. The office environment is really important. For me it’s about having the buzz of an office. The general noise and day-to-day movement of an office, chatting to people. That social interaction that you don’t really get when you’re working from a home based business.”

The North is pushing London for creative talent says Warren Gibson of Profiles Creative