Making waves: How Brighton is becoming the capital for freelance digital creatives

Making waves: How Brighton is becoming the capital for freelance digital creatives
Blog by Accounts and Legal

You may have heard of Silicon Valley in California or Silicon Roundabout in East London, but away from the big smoke a new digital business centre is emerging in Brighton – welcome to Silicon Beach.

Growing numbers of businesses are choosing to start up in the seaside resort helped by its short commute to London and the flexible working technology and the area provides.

Brighton has become a popular place for freelancers, especially those working in creative industries such as software development and technology.

Research from Brighton for Business shows 120,000 people in work in the City, including 8,000 entrepreneurs who run their own businesses.  Many of these work in professional and scientific occupations and the creative industries.

There has been a boom in businesses launching in Brighton over the past five years, according to Companies House data. In the year up to April 2016 8,495 businesses launched in Brighton, that is up from 7,461 in 2014 and 3,649 in 2011, representing a 57 per cent increase.

To give a taste of its popularity, 1,193 technology and software related businesses started in Brighton in 2014, the latest Companies House data shows, this is up from 953 a year ago and 611 five years ago.

The biggest increase has been among IT consultancies with the number of start-ups more than doubling since 2011 from 238 to 639.

Many big digital companies are based on Brighton such as social media monitoring company Brandwatch and email marketing firm Pure360.

Why Brighton?

Increasing numbers of people are going self-employed and many are one-man bands working purely online. This means you can work from anywhere, so rather than the Big Smoke, you could look for somewhere a bit more laid back.

Based on England’s sunny south coast, Brighton is just 50 miles or around 90 minutes away from London by car or half an hour by train into Gatwick.

The proximity to London means self-employed freelancers can benefit from the resources of the City if they need to meet clients, while also being able to work on the beach or unwind by the shore.

Property prices are cheaper than the capital, with flats selling for on average £264,199 compared with £472,783 in the capital.

There is no frustrating Tube commute to work and there are plenty of opportunities to work outdoors, especially as the city is planning to build wireless networks around its street furniture.

When they are not working by the beach many of Brighton’s creatives base themselves in the city’s shared space offices.

Creatives can find co-working spaces and storage at Brighton Media Centre as well as the Sussex Innovation Centre based at the University of Sussex.

As well as sharing office space, freelancers can also access grants and support from the Coast 2 Capital local enterprise partnership which has been set up to help new and existing businesses grow. It has £9.5million available to spend locally.

We are making waves

Accounts and Legal recently opened an office in Brighton.

We can help your business grow.

If you’re self-employed and thinking of starting a business in Brighton, we can help plan ahead and get your accounts in order. We are full-service accountants offering tax and accounting support from bookkeeping to business plans, and payroll to tax-efficient investment advice.

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk