Bristol is one of the most successful cities for tech startups in the UK.  As a matter of fact, the city’s tech industry has a long history, and starting with 2020, the sector is booming. Things got so serious that even the area was name Silicon Gorge. 

Another surprising fact is that Bristol was called the UK’s Leading Smart City back in 2017,  a nomination that one wouldn’t expect from this city. The top was made out of 20 cities around the UK and surprisingly none of the other cities managed to reach the progress Bristol did.  

Also, an interesting fact is that in 2018, Bristol hosted more than 35K digital jobs, and successfully launched 225 startups, according to the Technation report. The growth of the city as a hub for new tech would seem to be a continuation of this long tradition of engineering excellence and innovation.

Today’s success of Bristol in the tech & IT industry was only partially due to the long history of the industry in the area. Another huge contributor to the entire digital ecosystem is companies that promote and highlight the city’s digital behavior and leading innovations.  The mutual support - from companies to the city and vice versa launched many incubators, partnerships, accelerators, and competitions that most of the time work for citizens. 

Projects such as The Engine Shield, SETsqared Partnership, Silicon Gorge Pitching Competition, and Oracle Startup Cloud Accelerator marked the city’s digitalization and highly contributed to the economical and financial development of Bristol, but as well as of the entire area. 

In addition, Bristol is the home of several tech giants that also invest and create most of the digital workspaces for the community. Companies such as Nokia, BT, Amazon, Vodafone, or Sony consolidate the IT sector in Bristol and support the tech and IT development as well as launching startup programs, incubators, accelerators, and partnerships as such that were named above.

The Southwestern UK region in IT is dominated by two tech hubs: Bristol and Cardiff. And respectively the only city to compare Bristol is Cardiff. While Bristol is considered one of the leading tech hubs in the UK, Cardiff also benefits from high popularity in the same industry. 

Many companies are struggling to choose their next location or the second office in one of these two cities while planning to expand in the region. This happens because the IT infrastructure is pretty much similar, and big tech companies have offices in both locations.  

Yet, Bristol is considered to lead in specific fields of IT, such as cybersecurity, business development for digital startups, and programming. At the other end of the table, Cardiff is more known for web and graphic design, content marketing, and digital marketing overall. In this way, we can categorize Bristol as a more technical city, and Cardiff as a creative center, even though there is no serious difference between these two. 

In terms of salary competitivity, Bristol surpasses Cardiff. We took as an example the job of a Java developer and compared numbers. The average for Bristol is £57K/yr while in Cardiff is £42K/yr according to glassdoor. Even though the difference is obvious, please keep in mind what was mentioned in the city profile, while one is more technical, the other is more creative. 

All in all, Bristol’s tech industry continues to develop and is expected to grow despite the pandemics in 2020-2021. Yet, the IT boom comes in entire Europe, not only in Bristol, so the leading position that the city has now can only be controlled by the community, the city’s effort, and large investors. 

 

Web development is about creating, building, and maintaining websites or web applications using programming languages and web development frameworks. The main reason why web development services are popular is the need for businesses to establish their presence on the web. 

Building a website or a web application involves creating the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX), including the layout, colors, fonts, and images. It also consists in optimizing these elements for mobile and desktop, making the interface accessible to users, and facilitate the interaction between the user and the application. On the back-end, it involves scripting, server configuration, and database management. At the same time, it includes testing, maintenance, and ensuring overall functionality.

According to recent studies, over 4.7 billion people worldwide have access to the Internet. So, it’s obvious that having a well-designed and developed website is essential for any business that wants to succeed online.

On top of that, the number of mobile internet users is constantly growing, with approximately 92% of internet users accessing the web through their smartphones which proves the importance of responsive and optimized websites on mobile devices.

In a nutshell, a web developer, which is providing development services is responsible for:

• Establish a company's online presence via a web application
• Improve and optimize the performance of the website or web app
• Update and maintain the well-functioning of the website or web apps

In addition, depending on the terms of a contract between a company and a web developer, the second can assist with: 

• Backup the data of the website
• Operate changes to the UI
• Migrate the website to another domain or platform

Usually, a web developer should have both soft and hard skills. The soft skills are related to communication and reporting, while the hard skills help in the development process.  

If you choose to work with a web development company, make sure to keep in mind the following criteria in the selection process:

• The company should have experience in developing websites or web applications that are similar to yours.
• A solid portfolio that proves examples of their work.
• Communication abilities enough to pass through cultural, linguistic, and time-zone barriers.
• Transparency and proven track record

Carefully evaluating these factors, you can choose a Web Development company that best aligns with your needs. There are more than 18699 companies on the TechBehemoths platform that offer a wide variety of web development services.

 Explore their detailed profiles, and client reviews, and feel free to get in touch with them. We’ve created also a powerful filter that you can use to narrow down the results based on your requirements and shortlist the companies. 

Alternatively, you can submit your project and our team will select and send you the best matching companies in about 1 hour. It’s free and there is no obligation to hire.

We also invite you to read an insightful survey conducted by TechBehemoths in order to identify How IT Companies Use Web Development Technologies - 2022 survey.