Further evidence of an impending skills shortage among West firms that could threaten to derail the economic recovery have emerged from a report predicting the strongest jobs growth since 1998. The national survey by accountants BDO shows businesses’ hiring intentions rose sharply last month to surpass their pre-recession figure and reach their highest level...
Tough trading conditions in Europe are continuing to dog Latchways, the specialist safety harnessing firm which sells its products to the building, maintenance and utility industries – although it says it has seen what could be the first signs of an upturn in the UK construction sector. The Devizes-based firm, which reported a 34%...
Alliance Pharma, the highly-acquisitive speciality pharmaceutical company, has around £22m on tap to add to its growing portfolio of branded medicines and treatments, it said this week. The undrawn funds are available in its bank facility, the Chippenham-based firm announced in a pre-close trading update to the London Stock Exchange ahead of its interim...
A strong order intake from the US, including contracts worth £25m with the Pentagon, has helped Wiltshire-based manufacturer Avon Rubber overcome the impact of the strong pound. The firm, whose core respirator products are used by the military and emergency services, also benefited from buoyant orders for its dairy industry products, which are used...
Swindon and Wiltshire’s successes in attracting job-creating foreign inward investment has been welcomed by the leaders of the area’s Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), Swindon Council and Wiltshire Council. Swindon Business News revealed last week that 10 new investment projects were started by overseas companies in 2013/14 in the LEP area, creating 186 jobs and...
A strong performance by Swindon and Wiltshire in attracting business investment from overseas has helped the UK achieve the highest number of inward investment projects since records began in the 1980s, new figures show. In the Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) area, 10 new investment projects were started by overseas companies in...
Hi-tech innovator Plessey has signed a distribution agreement to grow sales of its world-beating lighting technology in Central and Eastern Europe, Italy and Denmark. The semiconductor firm, which was the cornerstone of Swindon’s electronics and microchip industry and still has an office in the town, is developing lighting products using gallium-nitride-on-silicon (GaN-on-Si) technology. These...
Integrated circuit pioneer Dialog Semiconductor has donated £80,000 to UTC Swindon as the college gears up to welcome its first students in September. Dialog, which has an engineering support office on Swindon’s Delta office park, is splitting its donation equally between investment in specialist equipment for the UTC and funding to support its first...
Workers at Swindon’s BMW plant have been praised for helping the new Mini Hatch win one of the UK car industry’s most-prestigious awards. The Mini Hatch – the latest in the iconic range – was named Auto Express magazine’s Car of the Year 2014 earlier this week against tough competition. The Swindon plant, which...
An innovative research centre based near Swindon is to play a leading role in developing low carbon construction materials which will be used in the buildings in the future. The University of Bath’s HIVE will be at its new Building Research Park (BRP) at The Science Museum at Wroughton. The £1m project – the first...
