Digital

Greater Manchester has the largest digital and creative sectors outside the south east, with the potential to create internationally significant clusters in broadcasting, content creation and media and cyber security, alongside new sub-sectors like e-commerce where the city-region has the potential to lead industries of the future.

Build on Greater Manchester’s position as a leading European digital city-region; enable the digitalisation of all sectors; and capitalise on the links between digital and creative industries that feed internationally significant clusters in broadcasting, content creation and media, and maximise growing assets in cyber security.

Manchester is the original tech city, ever since the computer was invented here! Europe’s largest purpose-built media location in Greater Manchester.

Example jobs available in this sector

Job Description

digital marketers promote brands, products and services through social media, websites and apps.

As a digital marketer, you'll look after different digital products. Your day-to-day tasks will include: working with clients and other marketing professionals, updating and creating content that is search engine optimised (SEO), looking at website data to discover ways for improving and tracking the success and failure of campaigns, writing and posting content with images on social media platforms, drafting and publishing content for online campaigns, producing content for e-newsletters and other forms of communication, working with web designers to create images and video content for campaigns

Salary Range

£20,000 - 50,000

Working environment

Usually office based or at a client’s business premises.

Hours

37 to 39 per week

Opportunities

With experience, you could specialise in a particular type of digital marketing, like mobile or video marketing. You could become a senior digital marketing officer or head of online marketing. You could also work as a freelance digital marketing consultant, or move into related areas like advertising, sales, e-commerce or public relations.

Job Description

Animators bring drawings and computer generated characters to life on screen.

visualising storyboard and script ideas, using animation software or hand drawn techniques to create characters and scenes, adding lighting, shading and special effects, painting in backgrounds and character colours, adding textures to digital models, using motion capture methods to create lifelike expressions and movements, using stop-motion techniques to film 3D models, combining separate layers of animation into one to create the final product

Salary Range

£14,000 - £36,000

Working environment

You could work in an office, from home or in a creative studio.

Hours

35 to 40 per week, potentially including evenings / weekends

Opportunities

With experience, you could progress from animator to lead animator and animation director. You could also work for larger animation studios, games developers, interactive media designers or video post-production firms. You might decide to go freelance or start your own studio.

Job Description

- cyber intelligence officers gather information about where threats to information technology (IT) systems come from and how they work.

identifying common weaknesses in IT networks, using digital resources to gather information and evidence, using computer forensics to identify attackers, their motivations and techniques, analysing threats to major security systems, monitoring new and evolving threats and assessing their potential impact, keeping databases of threats and hackers, producing threat assessment reports with recommendations for protective action, developing relationships with other organisations to safely share security knowledge, updating your skills and knowledge

Salary Range

£31,500 - £50,000

Working environment

You could work in an office or at a client's business.

Hours

35 to 40 per week, including evenings and weekends

Opportunities

With experience, you could become a specialised cyber security lead and then head of cyber security. You could also work as a freelance security contractor.

Job Description

Talking through requirements with the client and the development team, taking part in technical design and progress meetings, writing or amending computer code, testing software and fixing problems, keeping accurate records of the development process, changes and results, carrying out trials and quality checks before release, maintaining and supporting systems once they're up and running

Alternative titles for this job include Programmer Software developers design, build and test computer programs for business, education and leisure services.

Salary Range

£20,000 - £70,000

Working environment

You could work at a client's business or in an office.

Hours

37 to 40 per week including evenings / weekends

Opportunities

with experience, you could become a senior developer, with team, project management, planning or research responsibilities. You could move into related areas like systems design, IT architecture and business systems analysis.

You could also set up your own business or work as a consultant in most areas of the economy, for example business services, finance, cyber security, telecommunications and healthcare.

Job Description

Computer-aided design (CAD) technicians use software to design buildings, machinery, goods and components. They use 2D or 3D software to produce sketches, schemes, models and detailed drawings, checking that drawings meet quality and technical standards, finding and fixing inaccuracies or mistakes, communicating with engineers, designers and project staff, reading and interpreting engineers' drawings, doing mathematical calculations to work out angles, weights and costs, keeping accurate records of different versions of your design work.

Salary Range

£15,000 - £35,000

Working environment

You could work in an office or onsite. You may also work freelance.

Hours

39 to 41 a week

Opportunities

CAD technicians can become team or section leaders, project or site managers. With additional training, you could become a design or software engineer.

What to expect from this sector in the next 10 years

Greater Manchester has the largest creative and digital clusters in the UK, with an even split of 28,100 jobs in Digital Industries and 26,100 jobs in Creative Industries.

Whilst digital skills cut across every sector, the Creative & Digital Industries are vast and include: Animation, Publishing, Visual Effects, Photo Imaging, Advertising & Marketing, Television and Gaming.

Digital skills are critical for all, not just those working in the creative and digital sectors!