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Invest in Barnsley

Barnsley is a large borough located in South Yorkshire. We're proud of our heritage as a historic market town, famous for mining and glass work.

We have a clear ambition to continue to grow Barnsley as a place to live, work and invest. We’re a thriving, ambitious borough, focused on collaboration, innovation, and creating sustained business growth. We offer a helping hand to our businesses, and potential investors looking to us for unique opportunities.

Take a look at what's on offer and how we can help you to start to grow your business.

Why invest in Barnsley?

Barnsley has seen huge changes in recent years, with an awarding museum and culture offer, great house prices, and acres of green space on your doorstep. We're attracting both visitors and investors at a record rate. Take a look at Visit Barnsley to see what's on offer. 

We're in an ideal location in the heart of Yorkshire. We're located in the centre of the UK, with the M1 and A1 offering superb transport links. It's often overlooked that our borough is much wider than just Barnsley as a town. It's surrounded by key outlying towns including Penistone, Wombwell and Hoyland, and many thriving rural villages.

Businesses in Barnsley benefit from high quality, low cost commercial premises. Business support is provided from an award-winning council that is driving forward inward investment and was named as the LGC and MJ Council of the Year for 2023.

Our achievements

Our achievements so far have included:

  • Our award winning Enterprising Barnsley supported 96 new businesses to launch in 2022.

  • Our Digital Media Centres have a trailblazing global group of digital and creative advance - we're leading on digital within South Yorkshire.

  • Evri's parcel sortation hub is the largest in Europe, created 1400 jobs. 425 permanent positions were  filled, mostly by local people.

  • US company SHI’s Nexus Centre invested £12m creating 150 jobs. They offer an advanced data centre and computing solutions.

  • Our longstanding link with GXO Logistics and their ASOS flagship fulfilment centre brings 5000 jobs, making them the largest private employer in the borough.

  • Barnsley College is rated as outstanding and is passionate about training and progress for our young people.

  • A new NHS blood and transport service opened in 2020. This is one of the most advanced of its kind in the world. The centre, just off the M1, enables the NHS to distribute blood products and deliver world class lab services. They also offer the chance to create new advanced cell therapies.

  • Our £220 million town centre changes in Barnsley. Our flagship project - The Glass Works, has attracted major retailers, bars and restaurants. This makes Barnsley a great place to live, work and invest.

  • 850 new businesses (start-ups) have commenced trading in Barnsley. 400 more businesses have invested in the borough.

  • The percentage of Barnsley residents employed in 'higher skilled jobs' has increased from 42.1% in 2020 to 48%.

  • More people than ever before are choosing to use green methods of travel. We've seen an increase in people cycling (3%), walking (12%), and using a bus or train (25%). Less people are now travelling by private car (60%).

  • There is 100km of extra new off-road cycle routes in the borough. 100km of the borough's public rights of way have also been improved.

Digital innovation 

We're at the forefront of digital innovation in South Yorkshire with the following:

  • Digital Media Centres - home for creative and digital businesses, entrepreneurs and people with great ideas.
  • The Seam -  a new digital campus that will be at the heart of Barnsley's economy.
  • Tech welcome grants - funding digital companies in the South Yorkshire regions.
  • Digital innovation for growth - the Marketlab run workshops to help businesses sample new digital tools they can use.
  • IOT Engine - a programme that can help bring your concepts to life.

Future ambitions

Our future ambitions for the borough include:

  • Increase the coverage of gigabit capable broadband across Barnsley to 100% by 2030.

  • Increase the number of new jobs created from 8000 in 2025 to more than 15,500 new jobs by 2030.

  • Increase the percentage of the Barnsley population with a qualification at level 4 or above to 40%.

  • Every young person to attend a 'good' or 'outstanding' school or early years setting. All pre to post-16 settings to perform above the national average.

  • Annual footfall in our town centre and urban centres to grow to 10m by 2030 from 3.5m baseline (2020-21).

  • The number of people visiting cultural/heritage sites and museums across Barnsley to double, taking it from 1 million to 2 million by 2030.

  • Over 10,000 new homes to be built in the borough by 2030.

  • Reduce carbon emissions across the borough by 80%.

Find a commercial property

You can use our commercial property search to find managed offices, workshops, retail space, industrial premises, or development land in Barnsley.

Support for businesses

Enterprising Barnsley is our economic development arm. They support existing businesses in the borough, those looking to grow or expand, and new start-up ventures. They also offer a range of free support to private sector investors moving to Barnsley.

Support from our partners 

Business support from our partners offering training, funding and office space include: