In a boost for the UK’s digital media industry, Google has opened a second London Office in the city’s nascent technology quarter.
The Web giant has rented a seven storey building at 4-5 Bonhill Street just south of Old Street tube station, known as ‘Silicon Roundabout; for its booming technolgy scene. The area is said to be the UK’s answer to Google’s spiritual home in Silicon Valley, California.
The lease on the 26,000 square foot building will run until at least 2022 and was advertised most recently at a rent of £400,000 per year.
The office will eb the second in London, after Google set up its first ‘Googleplex’ headquarters on Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria in 2005, which employs over 5,000 Google staff. The new base will not replace its existing UK headquarters.
Google says it will turn the premises, located in the area billed as Tech City, into a “launchpad for new London-based start-ups and developers”. Tech City is already used as a base by numerous small technology start-ups.
It plans to host ‘hackathons’, where boffins meet to race against the clock on joint programming projects, and Google employees will be on hand to run training workshops and product demonstrations for fledgling technology companies.
The space will also be open to other organisations that support digital entrepreneurs.
“We announced our involvement in the Tech City project last year, and we’ve been working hard to make this vision a reality,” said David Singleton, engineering director at Google UK.”East London is already home to hundreds of innovative British start-ups and has huge potential for economic growth and new jobs over the coming years.”
