Digital Stoke”: a new opportunity for a second-order post-industrial city. Report 1.

The purpose of the “Digital Stoke” project is to understand and support the emergence of a growing Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) sector in Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire. While Stoke-on-Trent has historically been associated with industrial decline, the organic growth of a digital sector presents a new opportunity for economic regeneration. This research aims to (i) identify and map what constitutes the local digital economy, (ii) understand why the digital sector has developed locally, and (iii) analyse how it functions. The findings will inform evidence-based policy recommendations aimed at: (i) supporting digital firms and employment in Stoke; and (ii) raising Stoke’s profile as a destination for digital firms, thereby encouraging new investment (including Foreign Direct Investment), as well as attracting the attention of regional and national policymakers.

Report 1 details project findings arising from the analysis of secondary data together with analysis of the characteristics of digital industries and firms. A further document – Report 2 – will report findings supported by our analysis of primary data (comprising a web-scraped database of local ICT firms together with survey responses and extensive interviewing). Finally, policy recommendations – in Report 3 – will reflect the entire evidence base. Accordingly, the policy recommendations concluding this “Summary” are provisional.

This report comprises four parts. Part 1 posits that the ICT (or digital) sector, specifically Section J, as defined by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes, serves as a reasonable and practical unit of secondary data analysis. This part then provides national context demonstrating the increasingly significant contribution of the ICT sector to the UK economy. Part 2 focuses on the three local authority areas comprising North Staffordshire (i.e., Stoke City together with Newcastle-under-Lyme and Staffordshire Moorlands districts) and concludes that Stoke’s ICT sector is characterised by substantial size, high productivity, continued growth relative to the local economy, and rates of enterprise entry and exit that compare favourably with national rates. Part 3 analysis the characteristics of digital industries and firms to better understand the ICT sector, in particular, its creative economy characteristics and its dependence on intangible assets. Finally, based on secondary data analysis (Part 1 and Part 2) and industry and firm characteristics (Part 3), Part 4 explains how we developed the survey questionnaire and interview schedules, which form the basis of our primary research. These primary research efforts will be reported in Report 2 and will contribute to more comprehensive, evidence-based policy proposals in Report 3.