Silicon Fen - Area Characteristics

Area Characteristics

The region has one of the most flexible job markets in the technology sector, and people are often employed by other companies after a start-up fails. Although everyone wants their company to succeed, failures are tolerated, indeed almost expected.

One explanation for the area's success is that after a while such an employment market is self-sustaining, since employees are willing to move to an area that promises a future beyond any one company. Another factor is the high degree of 'networking', enabling people across the region to find partners, jobs, funding, and know-how. Organisations have sprung up to facilitate this process, for example the Cambridge Network.

Another explanation is that Cambridge has the academic pre-eminence of Cambridge University, which is one of the top 5 universities in the world, a high standard of living available in the county, and good transport links, for example to London and with Cambridge Airport now handling scheduled and charter airline flights from Europe as well as a full service business jet centre. Many graduates from the university choose to stay on in the area, giving local companies a rich pool of talent to draw upon. The high-technology industry has little by way of competition, unlike say in Oxfordshire where plenty of other competing industries exist. Because Cambridgeshire was not until recently a high-technology centre, commercial rents were generally lower than in other parts of the UK, giving companies a head-start on those situated in other more expensive regions; this has, however, recently changed and Cambridgeshire now has one of the highest costs of living in the UK outside London.