Brightonruns on a handful of strong industries. If you’re job-hunting or weighing a move, here’s where the opportunities (and the big-name employers) are.
Top industries & employers
Financial services & payments
American Express, Legal & General, Nationwide's Hove operations, Paxton, Sussex-based insurers
American Express has been the city's largest private-sector employer for years, running a substantial European operation from Amex House and its replacement building at 1 Central. The presence of a global payments firm is the single largest reason Brighton has a professional job market at all rather than only tourism and universities.
Digital, creative & product
Wired Sussex members, Brandwatch, Crunch, 15below, Clearleft, a long tail of studios and consultancies
The 'Silicon Beach' label is overused, but the underlying cluster is real and unusual in shape: hundreds of very small agencies, studios and freelancers rather than a few large employers, coordinated for two decades through the Wired Sussex network. It hires by reputation and referral, which is brutal for an outsider and excellent once you are in.
Games & immersive
Studio Gobo, Electric Square, Fusebox Games, a cluster of small independent studios
Brighton has one of the densest concentrations of games studios per head in the UK, most of them small and several of them spun out of one another. The Develop Conference has been held in the city for years, which is why a lot of the industry passes through every summer.
Higher education & research
University of Sussex at Falmer, University of Brighton, Brighton and Sussex Medical School
Sussex opened in 1961 as the first of the plate-glass universities, on a Basil Spence campus that is now listed, tucked into a fold of the Downs at Falmer. Between the two universities the city carries a very large student population for its size, which shapes the rental market as much as the economy.
Health & care
University Hospitals Sussex, the Royal Sussex County Hospital, the Louisa Martindale Building, Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust
The Royal Sussex County sits on a cramped cliff-side site in Kemptown and has been through a long rebuilding programme; the Louisa Martindale Building opened in 2023 and consolidated a large part of the acute estate. It is the major trauma centre for the region.
Tourism, conferences & culture
The Brighton Centre, the Royal Pavilion estate, Brighton Fringe, Brighton Pride, the Great Escape
Party conference season, Brighton Fringe — the largest fringe festival in England — the Great Escape new-music festival and one of the UK's biggest Pride weekends each put a city's worth of visitors into three miles of seafront. Hospitality employment is highly seasonal, which is worth knowing if that is the sector you are arriving into.
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