The world’s biggest Internet search engine is steaming into Manchester.
Google, the world’s most popular search engine, has announced plans to open a central office in Manchester, England as its main UK hub outside of London.
Initially, Google has set up its operation with a handful of people working from the Institute of Directors’ hub on Oxford Road.
But Kate Burns, Google’s UK managing director, said she was confident staff numbers will grow. Ms Burns said: We have expanded in London from one to more than 100 in four years and I would like to see Manchester go on the same route as demand for our services grows.
Googlers are expected to move to their new made-to-order offices soon in order to offer company support to customers in the Midlands, northern England, Wales and Scotland – all this according to the Cambridge Network.
Ms Burns was Google’s first European employee when it started the London operation in 2001. She is now responsible for its activities across the UK and the Netherlands. She said: Manchester is an ideal location for us. It’s a great cultural and media business centre and there is a great pool of professionals. There are great universities and we are always looking for highly-educated individuals.
The city is a great hub from which to serve our clients. Quite a number of companies have their headquarters in the region.
North west companies Littlewoods and MyTravel are big advertisers, while media buying agencies working with Google include MediaCom North and Mediavest.
Ms Burns said the UK online advertising market is set to reach £1bn in 2005. Google has 16.6 million users in Britain. In addition to selling advertising, Google supplies search programs to companies and organizations such as the NHS.
Finally it has got the combination of all the characteristics to establish a foothold really quickly and grow at the rate we expect.