Bracknell: The TekHub launches creating 100 jobs

A tech start-up designed to help support and stimulate innovation in UK industry has created 100 new jobs in Bracknell.

Based at a 10,000 sq ft office at the Reflex building on Cain Road, The TekHub is a £2 million centre of digital excellence.

A 100-strong army of digital experts – including marketers, designers, developers, analysts and engineers – were recruited for the launch on October 16 and the start-up has plans to recruit a further 50 employees in the New Year.

Its founders, young Berkshire-based entrepreneurs Dilshad and Barinder Hothi, are keen to help the Thames Valley region become known as an international hub of digital excellence to rival the likes of Silicon Valley in the US and the UK's Silicon Roundabout in Shoreditch.

The Thames Valley already has a strong history in digital tech, with Reading and the surrounding area being home to some of the biggest technology companies in the world such as Microsoft – where TekHub co-founder Barinder used to work – plus Oracle, Intel, Symantec and Cisco.

The number of tech enterprises in the area is three times the national average, according to a report by Tech City UK: www.techcityuk.com/reading

Barinder explained: “The TekHub is to be an innovation centre of digital excellence. Its purpose is to create world-class software from mobile apps to complex web-enabled platforms to compete at a global standard.”

The entrepreneurial couple is already hugely successful. The Hothis are the brains behind Bracknell-based The Knowledge Academy, the world’s biggest training company, with 250 staff and an expected £35m turnover this year, offering over 36,000 training courses globally from San Francisco to Sydney, covering over 50 subject areas from business, finance and legal, to IT, HR and project management. Launched in 2009, its clients include Rolls Royce, HSBC, British Airways, PwC, Disney, the MoD, the NHS and the House of Commons.

Barinder added: “We are tremendously excited to launch The TekHub and we hope that it will be the first of many around the UK that provides a unique platform for digital innovation to the UK economy.

“It has already begun its mission to create new jobs, skills and innovation to lead Britain to the front of the digital innovation race.

“Locating the The TekHub in Bracknell and not London has inspired us to rival the success of other digital communities such as Silicon Roundabout.”

UK-wide the digital economy is worth over £120 billion annually, and digital job growth is set to outperform all other sectors by 2020.