Global tech company SafetyCulture, valued at £1.38bn, has unveiled its new UK headquarters in Manchester with “big plans” to further recruit in the region.
With around 65 staff based in Manchester, the workspace operations platform has quietly been located on Lever Street since 2016. The move into the newly-refurbished 10,000 sq ft offices at Bond, a former bank on Mosley Street owned by Bruntwood SciTech, is designed to support SafetyCulture’s future growth and attract talent across the North West.
With space to accommodate around 120 employees, it signals the tech unicorn’s intentions of almost doubling its headcount in Manchester.
Founded in Australia in 2004, the tech platform is used across more than 18,000 businesses in the UK to support better ways of working and productivity, and has a client list that already includes the NHS, National Grid and British Airways.
The bigger office space will house SafetyCulture’s growing EMEA team and boasts an in-house chef, a library that converts into a games room, themed meeting rooms, and ‘recording booth’ meeting pods, all with a nod to Manchester’s music scene across the walls.
For the official opening of the new office, SafetyCulture’s COO and CFO John Blake travelled across from Australia for the occasion.
“We have bold growth ambitions but we want to do it in a way we feel like we’re going to have the most impact,” he told Prolific North.
“We have big plans, obviously there’s room to grow in this office and we certainly want to get there quickly. But the customer generally pulls us to where the opportunities are, that’s how we pick the locations that we operate in.”
Anna Wenngren, chief people officer at SafetyCulture, added: “We’ve grown so quickly, and we wanted something that was able to grow with us. Now there’s room here for us to do that over time.”
For those not familiar with SafetyCulture, it has evolved from a workplace checklist app started in a garage in Queensland, to a frontline operations platform now with around 700 staff globally and reached its current valuation following a $34m raise in 2023. Australia is now one of the company’s “smaller” markets, while the UK is one of its biggest.
But why did the company favour Manchester over other cities as a base for its UK operations? “Since first launching an office here in 2016, it’s been a great journey and this is our latest investment in really growing that.
“Manchester as a tech hub has access to amazing talent and lots of great universities. Manchester is the perfect place to be able to serve our customer base well, and the rest of Europe,” said Blake.
When it comes to talent, the company currently has staff working across customer success, sales, regional marketing and customer support based in Manchester. Building up relationships with local universities, SafetyCulture plans to look at including internships from next year and would “love to explore” having product, engineering, and other teams based out of the Manchester HQ too.
“We don’t want to go through the hyper growth that other tech companies might go through, where the quality of people that they’re bringing on board may have a negative impact on customers. We want to make sure we keep that bar nice and high, and so we will grow steadily,” explained Wenngren.
Speaking at the event, Joe Manning, managing director of inward investment agency MIDAS, hailed the “phenomenal growth” of SafetyCulture since moving to the city in 2016.
He added: “Manchester has become a magnet for global tech businesses and it’s great to see SafetyCulture’s latest investment, a prime example of innovative thinking to this fast-growing sector. We look forward to seeing and supporting SafetyCulture’s continued UK growth from its Manchester base.”
