Cardiff: Building a future global capital city
To enable Cardiff to become a truly global capital, the city needs to harness and adapt to the changing order.
3 minutes to read
Matt Philips, Managing Director of Knight Frank Cardiff, outlines the key building blocks that will help leverage Cardiff’s future prospects as a regional powerhouse competing on a global level.
Enhance the Skill Base
Cardiff’s ambition of being a leading city for economic and cultural development in the UK is based on the availability of a flexible and highly skilled workforce.
To be fully competitive, talent needs to be nurtured, developed further and most importantly, retained within region. Cardiff’s excellent universities are already delivering the workforce of tomorrow.
The city, however, needs to do better at delivering a career path for the best talent. This must include investment in amenity improvement, which will support Cardiff as a lifestyle choice for future graduates.
Deliver the Cardiff capital region
For the Cardiff city region to be a success, sensible and targeted investment is needed to ensure infrastructure proposals are delivered. Connectivity is necessary in two areas – high-speed fibre connectivity aligned to the needs of both households and businesses.
Transport infrastructure across the capital region also needs to be faster, reliable and more frequent. These are both now critical factors in the locational analysis of major occupiers.
Grow office, retail & leisure facilities
The provision of high quality office accommodation is in place but should extend further.
Employers and employees consider both amenity provision as well as the office environment. This begins within the office with facilities such as gyms, bicycle facilities and breakout areas.
Outside, the retail and leisure offering of a city is a significant factor in location choice. Cardiff has progressed well in recent years, but success can be short-lived.
Investment in this area needs to be maintained in order to harness trend changes and for the city to stay current and competitive.
Establish Cardiff as a UK media & creative hub
The creative industries are the fastest growing sector globally. Cardiff is already the home of three major broadcasters alongside being the established home for independent TV production companies and digital media clusters.
This city needs to embrace TMT firms more, providing the appropriate infrastructure in addition to the right type of space. The city has an extensive talent base aligned to digital companies.
This requires on-going encouragement through education and business support. Success in this goal will establish Cardiff as a major centre for creative industry activity in the UK
Cardiff – a global perspective
Cardiff is on the edge of becoming both a regional power within the UK and a global capital city.
To reach this goal we need to embrace and deliver on many objectives. Public and private sector collaboration is critical in achieving a strong economic and social foundation for the city.
We are entering a time of rapid change on a political, business and social level.
To enable Cardiff to become a truly global capital, the city needs to harness and adapt to the changing order. Intelligent investment made now will mean that South Wales and Cardiff will reap the benefit for years to come.
Find out more about investing in Cardiff and how Knight Frank can help you make intelligent property decisions.