February 4, 2016
London’s ability to foster startups lagging behind other key UK cities 0
The UK’s largest regional cities have produced twice as many startups as London over the last two years, according to research based on Companies House Data. The report, commissioned by office broker Instant Offices, compares the number of startups in each city to create a list of the country’s most entrepreneurial cities. The authors claim that the UK is now Europe’s most entrepreneurial country with over 2,644,100 businesses started within the last two years alone, according to data gathered from Companies House. The report cites the example of Liverpool with an estimated population of 440,000 and 57,323 new companies starting over the past 2 years. This results in an entrepreneurial population percentage of 16 percent. Birmingham’s entrepreneurial population percentage was 14.5 percent followed closely by Manchester at 14 percent. These numbers are significantly higher than the UK average of 2 percent and London’s 7.5 percent.
January 29, 2016
Delivering the low-down on the sit-stand workstation phenomenon 0
by Ashley Hayward • Comment, Furniture, Wellbeing, Workplace design
While the UK, US, Australia and other nations continue to treat them as something of a novelty, across Sweden, Norway and Finland, over 80 per cent of office workers use sit-stand desks. Offering employees a height adjustable work station is now mandatory in Denmark. However, sit-stand working is still in its infancy in the UK, with only 2 per cent of similar workers having access to variable-height workstations. Given the huge amount of news coverage devoted to the subject of sedentary lifestyles in the last couple of years, ‘sit-stand’ and ‘active working’ have become buzz terms in UK workplace design. The ‘On Your Feet Britain’* campaign has raised awareness of the health perils risked by the many Brits who spend an average of 8.5 hours a day sitting, whether at their desk or slumped in front of the telly. Inevitably, savvy employers will be asking themselves if they can afford to ignore the problem.
More →