WANdisco announces major expansion of its Yorkshire headquarters

SOFTWARE company WANdisco has been awarded a £504,000 grant to part-fund ambitious plans for its European head office in Sheffield.

WANdisco, which is based in the Electric Works building, plans to create 40 high-quality creative and digital jobs in Sheffield following the company’s move to the city last year.

David Richards, chief executive of WANdisco, said: “We relocated from London last year because it was expensive and had poor infrastructure. We chose Sheffield because of its fantastic facilities, high-quality workforce and excellent universities.

“Our original plan was to split our operation between Sheffield and India but we have been so impressed with what Sheffield has to offer and how cost-effective it has been for us that we’ve decided to make it the sole base for our European headquarters.”

The grant was awarded with support from the city’s economic development company Creativesheffield through the Grant for Business Investment (GBI) scheme, which provides capital grants to businesses to support sustainable investment in England.

WANdisco is a leading provider of distributed software development solutions used by Fortune Global 1000 companies such as BT, Dell, Cisco, Honda, NTT and Motorola.

Its unique replication technology allows globally distributed teams to work as if they are all at one location.

James Wilson, investment manager at Creativesheffield, said: “WANdisco’s planned expansion is excellent news for Sheffield.

“We currently have the fastest growing digital and new media sector in the UK, and with projects like Digital Region and the Sheffield Digital Campus we feel we are well positioned for the future.”