KPMG has revealed a £5.5m investment in its flagship Manchester office, set to enhance services offered to businesses in the region and provide improved working spaces for colleagues.
The firm will build Ignition North, a new 25,000sq foot collaborative hub designed to spark innovation and support digital transformation, and which will be home to KPMG’s Ignition team.
Along with technology experts across the company, the Ignition team will support clients from the start of an idea all the way through to the design, prototyping and development of solutions.
While the expansion is a confident push in favor of in-person working, KPMG claims that with its Manchester office redesign, the traditional office layout is being reimagined to cater for new and developing ways of working.
The space will be repurposed to prioritize meetings, presentations and informal get-togethers between colleagues, clients, and the firm’s wider networks. In other words, fully remote work may be on its way out at KPMG, with a more casual air to the physical employee experience. Time will tell how this plays out in the long run as increasing workers expect a more relaxed attitude regarding work arrangements.
Jon Holt, chief executive of KPMG UK, said: “Manchester’s thriving tech centre is a hive of activity, and the city has really established its reputation on the world’s stage as a leader in this field. Its strong business community and access to talent makes this the perfect location for us to invest as a firm.
“Our new Ignition Centre in Manchester will support a huge range of incredible businesses in the region and more widely, bringing together insights, people, and technology to accelerate innovation and help them solve some of their most complex problems.”
Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham said: “This investment, which will create new jobs in our digital and tech sectors, is a real vote of confidence in Greater Manchester’s thriving innovation economy. We’re the fastest-growing digital and tech hub in Europe, and Ignition North will be part of an expanding network of businesses and working spaces across our city-region driving that growth.”
