UKFast to offer tech companies free space in expanded offices

Jones spent £8.4m on the office next to the current HQ, which he plans to fill with new employees and fledgling tech companies

UKFast founder and CEO Lawrence Jones is planning to offer free office space to tech companies, following his £8.4m purchase of a new UKFast building beside its current HQ in Manchester.

The new building and the existing HQ were originally built as a pair, and Jones (pictured below) said the purchase means the UKFast team will not have to move offices again as it continues to expand.

He said: "It took us 10 years to get to £4m turnover, and from that we got to £40m in the last seven years. We are picking up momentum. With that comes a responsibility to keep growing the team. I don't want to fall into the same issue I got into in my last building: we took on a building we thought we would never fill, we moved in with only 20-odd people and we ended up with around 120 people when we moved here."

The hosting company saw sales rise 18 per cent year on year in 2015, reaching £34.3m. Jones said at the time that this was in part caused by UKFast's decision to build its own datacentres.

He said that the new building is too big for the company's current size, so he is looking to lease out some of the office space, renting it to companies for free if he believes they have a particularly good idea.

"We will open up some of the office space to the tech companies in Manchester, to allow them to come in and use the place as a tech hub," he explained. "This has been a dream of mine for over a decade now. We might even give people free space if we think they have a really good idea and they need help doing it. Britain needs great tech entrepreneurs and great businesses. It is up to us to try to help those new companies and inspire them to have the courage to take on staff and do new things. So if we have a big building sat there with empty spaces, why wouldn't I want to give that space to other people?"

Jones added that the new building is pre-emptive for the recruitment growth he has planned for the company, saying that UKFast has seen 10,000 applications this year, with over 1,000 per month.

"We have taken on more than 100 people so far this year. There is no restriction on how many people we want to take on. It is just a matter of finding people with the right attitude and the right culture," he said.

"Some people will say I have overpaid for the building, but maybe I'm looking more long term than some people. For me I'd rather pay a few million pounds more and avoid unnecessary disruptions for my team. The last thing I want to do is give people another upheaval sometime in the future. We have done seven office moves in 17 years, and I didn't want an eighth move."