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Work in Berkshire
About Berkshire
Berkshire, one of England’s oldest counties, is often referred to as ‘Royal Berkshire’ due to the presence of Windsor Castle and the county’s royal associations. It is a popular county with visitors and tourists and a sought-after film location. Berkshire is part of the Thames Valley region which lies to the north and west of London. Although generally a prosperous county, there are pockets of deprivation in eastern and central urban areas and in some isolated western rural areas.
Go to the Berkshire job searching page for useful links to major employers, job search agences and business facing websites.
The economy
According to a report published in 2008 by the county’s six unitary authorities, Berkshire performs well by national standards in terms of economic competitiveness and competes at a global level. It is home to 13 of the world’s top 30 global brands and Reading is ranked tenth nationally for retail activity and predicted to grow substantially over the next decade.
Thames Valley Economic Partnership (TVEP) highlights the fact that there are more scientists and technologists here than in any other European region, and that it is second only to California’s Silicon Valley as a cluster of IT companies. TVEP also outline the high-tech character of the region -“home to the European headquarters of the world's largest information technology companies, as well as many companies undertaking cutting edge research in the life sciences, biotechnology and environmental technology”. The county has a high employment rate and a skilled workforce.
Major employers
Large national/international technology, communications and manufacturing companies/organisations based in Berkshire include 3M, ADP, AWE, Dell, Cisco Systems, Foster Wheeler, Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard, Honeywell, Huawei, Matsushita Communications, Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle, Panasonic, SGI, Sony, Steria, Symbol Technologies, Symantec, Syngenta, UCB Celltech,Verizon, Vodaphone,Websense, Wyeth.
Other major employers include Johnson & Johnson Medical, BG Group (natural gas), ING Direct (financial services), Yell, and Pepsico, with many smaller distribution and professional services acting as suppliers. Reading has offices of major accounting firms Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst &Young and Pricewaterhouse Coopers. A large number of business parks throughout the county provide bases for both large companies and SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises).
In the public sector major employers are the county’s six unitary authorities (there is no county council), a range of educational institutions and the healthcare trusts.The county is also home to the Transport Research Laboratory and a number of defence establishments. Major towns and retail and employment centres include Bracknell, Maidenhead, Newbury, Reading, Slough, Windsor and Wokingham.
Higher education institutions within the county include the University of Reading and Thames Valley University.
