Skyscanner Q&A

Why is Edinburgh such a good place for tech companies to thrive?

There’s a real sense of excitement around the tech scene here and its growth is in no small part due to the supportive network of fellow tech businesses. As a group, we’re good at sharing knowledge and experience and there’s a thriving meet-up scene with regular events (many of which we host). It’s very inclusive.

How important are the universities here in producing talent?

They’re definitely important: there are a high number of excellent universities within Scotland that provide a rich source of skilled people for a company like ours. In Edinburgh, we’re pretty much next door to the excellent Edinburgh School of Informatics, where we’ve had a number of graduates come from.

Some might say tech companies could be based anywhere on the planet and still function well, so why choose Edinburgh?

For exactly the reasons above: a supportive, welcoming environment where the feeling is ‘the more start ups the better’

Are there any ‘next big’ companies or inventions we should be looking out for coming out of the city?

Our founder Gareth sees huge potential in local startups like Administrate, Appointed, Beer52, FloatApp, Mallzee, and Zonefox and has seed invested in some of those.   

Where do you look for talent and recruit from?

We recruit from a wide range of places. We’re looking for the very best out there to work across our business, teams and office locations. Whether in product, engineering or growth, we’re always recruiting at pace to support our growth globally. Recruiting talent, and engineering talent in particular, is a challenge for all technology businesses as there’s huge demand.

We’re looking for engineers who are comfortable working in an agile environment where experimentation and adoption of the latest technologies is standard. We offer interesting, challenging work in a fast-paced business where employees have a sense of ownership and flexibility. We feel that’s vital in attracting the right people.