THE thriving tech industry in Bournemouth and Poole has a greater proportion of high-growth businesses than its counterparts anywhere in the country.

The news comes in the latest Tech Nation report, which says the sector employs 15,763 people and is worth £352million a year to the local economy.

It also highlights new co-working spaces, including the one opened by THIS Group in the Daily Echo’s building on Richmond Hill.

The report, which examines the tech industry across the UK, says 26 per cent of firms in Bournemouth and Poole’s digital “cluster” are high-growth – compared with 22 per cent in second-place Newcastle.

It found there were 199 start-ups since the last report and that workers in the sector commanded an average salary of £39,508.

Ninety-five per cent of tech workers said quality of life was “good” or better, while 91 per cent rated digital growth optimism as good.

The report mentions the talent coming out of the National Centre for Computer Animation and Visual Effects at Bournemouth University, the success of the Digital Wave careers conference last year and the business accelerator programme First Bourne. It mentions digital and creative agencies such as Poole’s Salad Creative health tech start-ups such as Nourish in Westbourne.

It hails the success of the Silicon Beach conference, which expanded into London last year, and the testing by Ordnance Survey and Bournemouth council of a 5G mapping and planning tool.

The report is by Tech City, the organisation founded by the government to promote the sector.

Prime minister Theresa May says in a foreword: “Today more than 1.5million people are already working within the digital sector, or in digital tech roles across other sectors, while the number of digital tech jobs across the UK has grown at more than twice the rate of non-digital tech sectors. From analysts to web developers to software architects, these pioneers of our digital economy are at the forefront of a great British success story.”

For a full analysis of Tech Nation 2017, including comments from the local digital sector, see this week’s Friday Digital page in the Daily Echo.