Employment City officially home to some of UK’s best places to work
ABRISTOL tech company founded by an ex-GCHQ trainer, and a finance software firm headquartered in the city, have been named among the best places to work in the UK.
The annual rankings are compiled by workplace culture organisation Great Place to Work UK and are based on employee feedback.
The guide recognises the best small, medium, large and super large businesses in Britain, with a total of 290 firms included for 2022.
This year’s list was dominated by companies with London headquarters, but two Bristol firms were also recognised.
National companies with offices in the city were also included, such as auditing giant Deloitte, which has a base in Redcliffe, and IT infrastructure business Softcat, which is based in St Pauls.
Benedict Gautrey, managing director of Great Place to Work UK, said the organisation had seen “dramatic shifts” among UK companies in awareness of inclusion and diversity issues, and the environment, over the past year.
He also said employees were expecting greater equity, transparency, flexibility and purpose. “The differences bold leadership and a culture driven by shared values and a sense of purpose can make to organisations are clear,” he said.
Here we take a look at the two Bristol companies that were named great places to work by their staff.
Immersive Labs
Immersive Labs, which was set up by James Hadley in 2017 and is based on All Saints Street in the city centre, was named the 14th best medium-sized company in the country to work for. The business has developed an online platform for organisations to identify gaps in a workforce’s cyber knowledge and counts the British Army and Formula One team McLaren Racing among its customers.
Last November, Immersive Labs announced it had acquired US tech firm Snap Labs to bolster its cyber security training offering to businesses.
It already has more than 200 staff and is hiring for a number of different roles, according to LinkedIn.
Xledger
Xledger was named the sixth-best small company to work for in Britain. The US-founded finance software
company has its UK headquarters in Bristol.
Chief executive Mark Pullen and head of sales and marketing Ian Halliwell joined Xledger in the second half of 2019, and since then the company has become one of Bristol’s fastest-growing businesses.
In 2020 – between lockdowns – the Xledger team moved into 11,000 square feet of newly renovated grade A office space at Tower Wharf. The offices have a host of employee and client breakout areas, meeting rooms and entertainment spaces.
Following the move to Tower Wharf, Mr Halliwell said: “Our culture is one of collaboration, trust, enthusiasm and fun. We’re creating a business that’s non-hierarchical and this approach means we can be agile and scale quickly.”
The differences bold leadership and a culture driven by shared values and a sense of purpose can make to organisations are clear Benedict Gautrey, Great Places to Work