US video streaming pioneer to recruit 50+ staff following Manchester move
More than 50 jobs are being created after the opening of US video streaming company Roku’s new office in Manchester.
Based in San Jose, California, Roku was founded by Manchester-born CEO Anthony Wood.
It makes a variety of digital media players for video streaming.
The office is in the heart of a new tech epicentre, off Oxford Road, in Bruntwood SciTech’s No.1 Circle Square.
Roku said it will be recruiting for more than 50 engineering roles before the end of 2022, as well as offering three-month paid internships to the region’s budding software engineers.
The Manchester site will be the firm’s fourth UK location, in addition to offices in London, Cambridge and Cardiff.
It chose Manchester due to the proximity of academic institutions, such as the University of Manchester, and the network of digital innovators around the Circle Square neighbourhood.
Roku says it is America’s No. 1 TV streaming platform by hours streamed. Its platform serves more than 56 million active accounts worldwide as of the third quarter of 2021.
Alastair McGeoch, the company’s director of software engineering: “Roku was founded on the belief that all TV will be streamed. We are looking for the right talent to continue to change how the world watches television.
“Manchester is a city steeped in engineering history and famed for its cultural impact on the world, so it is a natural fit for us. In Manchester, we will primarily focus on recruiting software engineering roles in 2022, with the ambition to increase the size of our team there in the next four years.”
Tim Newns, chief executive of Greater Manchester’s inward investment agency MIDAS, said: “It is incredibly exciting to have one of the world’s leading content streaming technology companies investing at such scale in Manchester.
“They join a wider software supply chain around content streaming that includes the likes of BBC iPlayer and Disney Streaming Services (formerly Cake Solutions) which makes this a growing area of specialism for the city region and at a time of extreme growth in that sector globally.”
Bradley Topps, commercial director, Bruntwood SciTech, said: “From conception, our ambition for Circle Square was to create a must-see and must-be-in destination that would bolster Manchester’s knowledge economy and the scale of this deal truly realises that vision.
“It’s fantastic news for the region that Roku has identified the unique opportunity that a home in the heart of Manchester’s Oxford Road Corridor provides, with its accessibility to emerging talent, university research, and potential funding.”
