Figures cited by ministers reveal that over 500 officials employed by the technology department are now located in places other than the capital, with Salford, Cardiff and Birmingham particular hotspots
About a quarter of employees at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are based in locations beyond London, statistics have revealed.
According to numbers provided by the department, a total of 1,719 staff members are based in the capital, covering three office locations in and around the Westminster area. This equates to about 77% of the overall total of 2,235 people that are employed in the core DSIT department – excepting arm’s-length agencies.
The remaining 23%, adding up to 516 officials, are based in various locations around the rest of the UK.
Government is currently engaged in delivering the Places for Growth programme which, in past four years, has been striving towards a target of relocating 22,000 civil service jobs from London to other parts of the country.
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Recently released programme data showed that, having been created in February 2023, during the second half of that year and the first three months of 2024, DSIT moved a total of 173 roles from the capital.
The department’s own data shows that its second headquarters established in Salford last year now houses 207 staff. Other significant employment hubs for DSIT include Birmingham, with 82 employees, and Cardiff, with 81 across two office locations.
Edinburgh employs 45 departmental staff, while there are 43 in Darlington, 25 across two offices in Bristol, and 12 in Belfast.
There are also seven UK cities with a single-figure number of DSIT staffers: Newcastle (5); Leeds and Glasgow (4); Nottingham (3); Liverpool and Sheffield (2); and York – home to one single departmental employee.
The workforce-location statistics were provided by digital government minister Feryal Clark, in response to a written parliamentary question from Conservative MP Ashley Fox.
