New Golden Valley Development careers video inspires people to enter growing cyber sector

Published by

Peter Davison

The Golden Valley Development, which aims to develop 200-hectares of land beside GCHQ in West Cheltenham into a garden community integrating hi-tech business, residential and leisure uses, has produced a new video encouraging local people to pursue a career in cyber.

Key messages include promoting diversity in the sector regardless of age, gender and background ahead of the construction of the National Cyber Innovation Centre.

The project will create around 12,000 new jobs across numerous sectors and up to 3,700 new homes for the local area.

The Golden Valley Development yesterday (Tuesday) unveiled their latest careers video, which aims to inspire local people to enter the burgeoning cyber sector.

Featuring a wide range of representatives from Cheltenham’s ecosystem, from students to leading figures in cyber, the collective aims to promote diversity in the sector to help make it more accessible to people regardless of their age, gender and background.

The video also examines the role of the Golden Valley Development and the National Cyber Innovation Centre in making this possible as the future home to the UK’s cyber innovation.

The development will create 12,000 new jobs in various sectors and up to 3,700 new homes giving local people opportunities on their doorsteps, whilst also attracting new people and businesses to the area.

It is also bringing together local government, organisations, schools and colleges to create the chance for people to learn the skills required for a career in cyber and digital, helping to address the national skills shortage.

It will go beyond just careers for those who are young, with opportunities to retrain and learn new skills at any age.

The video also explores the meaning of cyber, the national significance of the project and why Cheltenham has been chosen as the home for the innovation.

Gloucestershire has a cyber concentration that is six times the national average and Cheltenham has 11 times the same amount, the highest of anywhere outside of London.

With the development set to be located opposite GCHQ in West Cheltenham and alongside institutions such as Hub8 and CyNam, the town already has a cyber-ready infrastructure like no other.

Commenting on this new video, Cllr Mike Collins, Cabinet Member Cyber, Regeneration and Commercial Income, said: “The Golden Valley Development will create opportunities for people from Cheltenham and across Gloucestershire, making the cyber sector more accessible than ever before.

"This new video really emphasises the diversity of the ecosystem here in Gloucestershire, where anyone can learn new skills and connect with leading people in the industry.

“Whether you are a business, a young person leaving school or college, or someone looking to retrain, we believe that this project will provide unique opportunities and a reason to stay in Gloucestershire.”

Councillor Victoria Atherstone, Cheltenham Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Housing, commented: “[It will generate] an ecosystem of not just jobs in cyber, but all the support services that need to go around that.

"It’s going to create loads of jobs not just for young people, but for young professionals and those with lots and lots of experience.”

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.