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Why locate in County Durham?

“A perfect little city” Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island


  • An area of outstanding natural beauty
  • A 1000 year old Cathedral, part of a World Heritage site
  • An internationally outstanding research and teaching University - fifth best in the UK
  • A workforce that is practical, hardworking, with a sense of pride in their communities
  • An outstanding quality of life
  • A shared heritage of spirit, passion, creativity and innovation.

County Durham has a long heritage of industry and innovation – the first lightbulb, the first railway born here.  And that tradition continues with several of the world’s leading companies making their home here: GSK, Thorn, Caterpillar, add RFMD and most recently, Hitachi locating its European HQ for high speed rail in County Durham.
County Durham nurtures several home grown success stories such as Seaward Electronics, Kromek, Tallent Automotive, Thomas Swan, Alexander Technologies, Banks Group, Npower, and Sunderland Marine Insurance.  These companies employ significant numbers and have invested and reinvested in County Durham.


County Durham has several advantages as a location for companies:

  • Property – a wide range of property available including laboratories at NETPark, managed workspaces, production facilities large and small, logistics, warehousing and call centres and, of course, land for development.
  • Finance – A range of grants, loans and equity schemes are available to companies in County Durham. We can research this for you.
  • Access to markets – County Durham is conveniently located in the middle of east and west time zones and has excellent connectivity: London is 2.5 hours by train, Dubai is 7 hours by air, Schiphol and Heathrow both 60-70 minutes away by air.
  • Skills – 90,000 undergraduates and 20,000 post grads study in the 5 North East Universities
  • Expertise – world class research in Durham University includes Energy, Biophysical Sciences, Space Science and many others including a world-renowned Business School (ranked in the top 20 in Europe). 4 other universities within easy reach – Newcastle, Northumbria, Teesside and Sunderland
  • Established supply chains in several sectors

In addition, County Durham is home to several assets to help companies develop products and services more quickly. The National Printable Electronics Centre, managed by the Centre for Process Innovation is located at NETPark in Sedgefield and is part of the national High Value Manufacturing Catapult Centre.  NETPark Net, the Business Innovation Gateway and the Strategic Account Management Programme are managed by Business Durham to assist companies with whatever they need. Our team is your team.

Testimonial

What we didn’t realise before we made the move was how hard the Business Durham team works to help your company. It’s like joining a club – everyone supports you and the company, you meet great people and get many opportunities to showcase your technologies. It says something about a place when you can get introduced to NASA’s Senior Medical Advisor, investors and the head of R&D at Tata Steel!
Richard Kirk, CEO of Polyphotonix, a company which relocated to County Durham from London.