Growth for Sunderland Tech Hub

Three years on from the launch of a dedicated technology hub at major local employer, BGL Insurance, the business has revealed plans to expand its operation with the recruitment of several important new tech roles. The £3 million pound hub, which opened in 2019, was initially created to allow BGL Insurance to tap into the tech talent in the North East. This has already proven extremely successful, with the site now housing over 40 key IT roles including Solutions Architects, multiple-level Software Engineers, Change Delivery Managers, Tech Leads, as well as several Business and Quality Analysts.

With over three million customers, BGL Insurance is a leading digital distributor of personal lines insurance for some of the UK’s leading financial services brands and currently employs over 700 people at its St Catherine’s Court site in Sunderland. With exceptional customer experience and technology innovation going hand in hand, the next phase of growth will see BGL Insurance recruiting a further 10 tech roles at the site including Software, Data and Java Engineers, as well as a variety of Change Delivery Managers.

Steve Woodford, Chief Technology Officer, at BGL Insurance said: “We’ve already benefitted hugely from the amazing talent we have found in the North East, with our Sunderland tech operation going from strength to strength. I’m delighted with how quickly the team established itself as an integral part of the organisation and in particular, our Sunderland colleagues were pivotal in helping to get the entire business working from home at the start of the pandemic. When we look back to the initial launch of the site, the growth of the team accelerated at such a fast pace that we went from one team member, to more than 30, in just nine months.”

Steve continued: “BGL Insurance is often seen as the industry’s best kept secret but one of the factors that makes the Sunderland Tech Hub such a great place to work, is the culture. When we created the site, we wanted to provide an exciting environment within a progressive digital business. However, it was also important to us that we offered truly great tech career opportunities where colleagues could turbo-charge their learning and development, while also following their passions. We’re all incredibly proud of what we’ve built in Sunderland and over the next few months, we will be exploring several different ways to grow our talent pool further. These include establishing links with local universities, potential graduate opportunities, as well as encouraging internal development from colleagues currently in the contact centre who would like to develop careers within technology!”

For more information on the roles available at the BGL Insurance Tech Hub, please visit https://www.bglinsurance.co.uk/careers/search-and-apply