We met up with Allan Wroe of Recital Consulting to find out why he felt now was the right time to move his business to Stockport:

Tell us a little bit about your business & expertise…

Our focus, and area of expertise, is the recruitment of IT technical, consultancy and management staff for our clients. We have consultants dedicated to specific areas of Information Technology which means that our clients and candidates only work with a consultant who is relevant to their search. We work with businesses across the UK and approximately 75% of our clients are technology companies.

Although our client base is (and always will be) UK wide, we want to be recognised a recruitment provider of choice within our home town and the surrounding areas. We work very hard to dispel the common perception of recruitment consultants and our goal is to be the first choice for IT recruitment in the Greater Manchester area.

How many people do you employ? 

At present we are five people with two confirmed to join in July. We are looking for more staff and would like to be at twelve people by the end of the year. We also have a part time staff member who is currently a student at The Seashell Trust. We have provided a work experience placement for this student for about twelve months and as of September she will be joining us on a permanent, part-time, basis.

When did you move into Beckwith House?

We took three suites on the sixth floor at the end of April. Previously our offices were located at Oak Green Business Park which is part of Stanley Green Trading Estate.

How are you using the new space?

We’ve taken three connected suites which gives us a main office for the majority of our staff, a meeting / training room and a kitchen / break out room. The meeting room is perfect for us to invite clients to use for interviews if they are locally based or simply want an off site facility. We wanted to have a kitchen facility which is dedicated to our own staff so that they can have somewhere quiet for lunch, it also works well for less formal team meetings etc. The layout of the space we have taken is very flexible.

What prompted the move?

The main driver for the move was the expansion of the business. Our previous offices were about 75% of the size we have now but we really struggled to find staff for ourselves. The public transport links and car parking arrangements at Stanley Green are sadly lacking and we know that we missed out on some good people because of location.

What appealed to you about Stockport town centre?

We always knew that we didn’t want to re-locate the business to the centre of Manchester and so we started looking at areas of Stockport with good transport links. As well as the town centre we also looked at Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall and Wilmslow. It very quickly became apparent that due to transport links, proximity to Manchester and available property of the right quality that Stockport was the best choice. When you factor in the new developments and investments in Stockport it became clear that in the next 2-5 years Stockport is going to be the place to be.

What was your experience of working with the Orbit team, how have you felt since moving in?

I must admit that initially we were quite opposed to a “big office block” type of location but as soon as we saw the work space at Beckwith House we knew that it made sense. The guys at Orbit were superb in terms of helping us to secure and configure the space we needed. Not only that but they made the transition quite easy as well because they organised the fitting of a kitchen and allowed access to contractors for installing network cabling and the like as well. Right from the initial enquiry it felt like ours was a business that Orbit wanted in their property and that has continued since we moved in.

What are the ambitions for the business in the next few years?

As previously mentioned, our main driver for moving to Stockport was to grow the business in terms of personnel. Our current office has space for 15-18 people and we hope to hit that number by the end of 2017. At that point we will start looking for our next location, still in Stockport town centre but with space for 30-40 people.