Engineering news
The 517-acre hub will increase Dyson’s footprint in the UK by tenfold. The company has more than tripled its UK headcount in the past five years and currently employs 3,500 people in the UK – half of which are engineers and scientists.
“After 25 years of UK growth, and continuing expansion globally, we are fast outgrowing our Malmesbury campus,” said Sir James Dyson. “The Hullavington campus is an investment for our future, creating a global hub for our research and development endeavours.”
Dyson, the UK’s largest investor in robotics and the company, has 40 live technology projects with UK universities including Imperial College London, Cambridge, Warwick and Newcastle.
"What we are about is fusing engineering thinking and practice within a culture of innovation and enterprise," Peter Childs, head of the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial, told PE. “So what we are interested in is nurturing the next generation of inventors to improve products, services, and systems worldwide.
“The centre will be of huge benefit to the UK, it will increase the skills base of engineers, designers, technology experts, and entrepreneurs, and this is incredibly welcome.”
A recent report by Accenture estimated that AI could contribute up to £654 billion to the UK economy by 2035.
“This investment is a vote of confidence in our modern industrial strategy and our determination to cement the UK’s position as a world leader in high-tech engineering,” said Prime minister Theresa May in a statement. “Dyson’s exporting strength and commitment to creating jobs in Britain is a real success story that demonstrates the opportunity that our plan to create a truly global Britain can present.”
Work on the new Dyson campus will begin in May. The company is rapidly expanding: it already has a software hub in Bristol, and plans to launch the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology in September – a new university based at Malmesbury. Two weeks ago, Dyson also opened a technology centre in Singapore.