Why Paradise?

By Matthew Hammond, Midlands region chairman at PwC and the firm’s Birmingham office Senior Partner.

This is a region where everybody can make their mark, seizing the opportunities that the regeneration of Birmingham and the West Midlands is forging ahead with. We should be reminding ourselves of the importance of the city’s motto, ‘Forward’, and make that our collective purpose to ensure aspirations of inclusive growth are delivered.

We are doing so here at PwC.

Moving ‘forward’ for PwC has led to an extra 600 staff being based here in just 26 months, the majority through recruitment of local talent from universities and colleges, but increasingly schools too.

We are just over half-way through our investment plan and anticipate reaching over 2,200 in our team in Birmingham by Autumn 2020.  1,000 high-quality roles added in four years, with technology investment as the enabler and real estate investment at One Chamberlain Square as the place-making backbone. We are delivering the intent of creating a memorable destination where our people, clients and visitors from around the UK, and further afield, want to visit.

The next five years brings notable major events, particularly putting a spotlight on the young and internationally diverse population of the region through culture and sport.  Over the next 10 years, with significant infrastructure investment that is visible across the city and beyond, the crucial £500m investment in Birmingham International Airport alongside HS2, we can make ground on periods of under-investment and move forward with confidence. The groundwork being completed now will purposefully transform the Midlands.

In addition to my roles at PwC Midlands in 2018 I was appointed Chairman of the West Midlands Growth Company, working closely with the West Midlands Combined Authority, the private sector and critically our fantastic universities – themselves some of the most significant businesses in the region, and highly reputed nationally and internationally.  Midlands universities have been for many years the single biggest source of talent recruited into PwC across the UK, but retention in the region is materially increasing.

Our economy in the Midlands and some of the liveability and affordability indicators featuring in PwC’s annual Good Growth for Cities Index continue to place the cities of the Midlands high on quality factors.  Their increasing rankings are closely aligned to the successful work of the LEPs across the region on job creation in particular.

My own enthusiasm for Paradise has come from several years’ involvement and being part of the legacy the development will create for the region.

At the start of 2020 we will take a significant step in our journey of growth and commitment to Birmingham. PwC is a significant investor in the city and the firm made its single largest UK investment outside London by extending our lease to the whole of the commercial space at One Chamberlain Square. We agreed to take on the remaining 60,000 sq ft of office space in a deal completed in November 2017.

PwC is the anchor tenant for the Paradise scheme. Our early commitment with support from many stakeholders including Argent, GBSLEP, Birmingham City Council and Hermes has enabled the urban regeneration of this key part of the city to become a reality.

The prospect of a walkable city centre from Five Ways, through Brindleyplace and on to New Street, Colmore Business District, East Side and in time the Curzon Street development, is a transformational reality.  At the centre of that, One Chamberlain Square, firmly in the heart of the connected public realm space of Centenary Square, Chamberlain Square and Victoria Square, is unrivalled and full of opportunity to propel a new image of the city nationally and globally.

One Chamberlain Square is much more that an office investment. We are designing our space in an entirely new way, recognising how we work now is very different to even the recent past, and the future of work is changing rapidly. It’s about making the most of the opportunity, which is a once in a 30-year move, by creating an environment for generations of the future too.

So why Paradise for PwC? Built partly on the site of the architecturally regarded brutalist Central Library which was demolished to make way for the Paradise development, there was a piece of graffiti on the library exterior that said ‘Todo es Posible’ translating to ‘Everything is Possible’. We have taken that principle into the design ethos, creating a functional workspace but also hackable spaces for clients and colleagues to collaborate in, with tech and the importance of face-to-face human connections at the heart of it. Our ambition to move ‘forward’ matches the ambitions of the developers and stakeholders to be transformational.

Why is the timing of this investment in the future important to PwC? We are actively rebalancing our workspace and people to a more balanced footprint across the UK to major cities, matching the changing footprint of our clients, development of devolved regions to make the most of new opportunities across the UK economy. In 2017, 55 per cent of our graduate intake was recruited into roles outside London and that has risen to 60 per cent for 2018/19. The rebalancing is refreshing.

One Chamberlain Square is the perfect place to bring this vision to life, a place to create possibilities and futures that people will want to be part of. A place that is memorable, distinctive and engaged with the city around it. We will be at the heart of the city and the heart of the country, with unbeatable connectivity, especially through public transport.

We wish to grow our workforce by recruiting local school leavers, young apprentices and graduates, but also by being persuasive to encourage others to return to the region and for newcomers to explore the liveability of the region as a longer-term place to build a career and life, with connectivity to the North & South, and East & West.

Finally, our moves ‘forward’ on social mobility for example with our first Tech Degree Apprenticeship programme with the University of Birmingham, and the diversity of our teams through our recruitment are now delivering real change.  Our graduate intake for 18/19 with 46% from a BAME background is a great lead indicator.

One Chamberlain Square is a key element to our investment.  But who we work with, the clients and people that choose to work with us and the purpose of PwC will be the difference between ‘just’ another office investment or a ‘forward’ facing transformational opportunity for this place. I am looking ‘forward’ to PwC playing its part in the purpose of this region, and I know I speak for my colleagues also who are excited about the future.