Back in May, a sort of revolution started in the London tech scene. You see, London is a special place. It has massive industries in the shape of the financial sector and the media industry (like the BBC) right on its doorstep, so any fresh new talent is often attracted to these established industries and their nice cozy salaries. But in May a leading startup of the area Songkick brought together 45 startups the first “Silicon Milkroundabout”, a job fair organized by the startup community in East London. The event was a great success. And now it’s back.
So the next Silicon Milkroundabout (being held at the Truman Brewery on 30th October) is more than doubling to host 100 UK start-ups with over 1,000 attendees expected on the day. You can can register at www.siliconmilkroundabout.com
According to some estimates there are now over 500 start-ups in East London, up from 70 just three years ago (I don’t think all of those are pure startup tech companies, but it does show the growth going on).
As the guys at Silicon Milkroundabout say, unlike the Valley or Berlin, London has a problem – every year the banks spend millions of dollars, along with management consultancies and big muli-nationals to convince top computer science and engineering graduates to join them.
In the UK only 3% of graduates consider working in tech vs 10% in the “City”. ‘Milkround’ careers fairs at universities cost money. Lean start-ups get drowned out.
But, Silicon Milkroundabout is enormously cost effective. They say the hires made at the last event saved over £250,000 in recruiters fees, with each start-up paying a nominal fee to attend.
Here’s hoping the next one will suck out the talent inside the banks that might be more productive inside a startup.