The recent Glassdoor announcement that Swindon is placed number four, after Slough, Manchester and Cambridge, in their ranking of best cities to work, will come as no surprise to residents of the town.
The website based its ranking on the number of job openings, average salary and job satisfaction. And all of these elements – the opportunity presented in the local area and talent pool fed by great nearby education institutions, and work life balance, combined with house prices and the unique benefits we receive from being both at the end of the M4 tech corridor and surrounded by Wiltshire countryside, make Swindon a hard combination to beat.
Andrew Burgess, co-founder and CEO, equimedia
This is precisely why equimedia was set up here, some 17 years ago – and why we have just reinstated our commitment to the town by moving to new premises in the Windmill Hill business park – alongside major business heavyweights Nationwide, Npower, Cable & Wireless and RBS.
It’s part of our company DNA to stand apart from our competitors – almost all of whom are firmly rooted in the capital. We have a satellite office in Paddington so we can meet and keep London-centric clients happy. However, as one of the largest independent digital media specialists in the country, we’re proud to be located so close to the tech and creative powerhouses in Slough, Reading, and Bristol, which have certainly added to our digital sophistication.
Swindon is perfectly positioned right at the sweet spot of these influences. We’re also dedicated to helping and keeping local talent in the area, rather than seeing London as the only place in the country that amazing digital advertising and media work can be undertaken. Far from it! We work hard to keep our staff engaged and educated with continual training; it’s also critical in the work we undertake to have people working for us who have an appetite to keep up to date on the latest digital technology developments.
Of course the best asset Swindon offers to people living and working here isn’t the variety of high calibre businesses based in and around the town. It’s not the Magic Roundabout, or the Designer Outlet centre. It’s the quality of life and that’s something big cities like Manchester, Cambridge or London just can’t match.
The lack of long, costly commutes, annual transport fare increases, crowded packed buses or the kind of presenteeism culture of long hours you can find in city offices makes our staff happier, all round. The work may be hard, and occasionally a day may be long, especially when we have a big new business pitch on the cards. But it’s always balanced out with more days when people can leave on time, and balancing hard graft in the office with family time outside of it.
Half of our staff live in Swindon itself, the other half further away in areas such as Bath, Salisbury, Newbury and Cheltenham, which gives much more variety in affordable and pleasant places to live than, for example, a zone 4 suburb and a one room flatshare. This is what has contributed to our low staff turnover and directly to our business success.
Swindon has always been at the heart of our business, and we’re proud to say it’s going remain so for the foreseeable future.
