Workday to invest £550m in Britain to cement it as tech ‘superpower’
US software giant Workday has announced plans to invest more than £550m in the UK over the next three years.
The Nasdaq-listed company added that the move will also see it up its headcount in the country – although it has not confirmed by how much.
In a statement, Workday said the investment is a 40 per cent increase over the previous three years, “furthering the organisation’s commitment to strengthen the nation’s economy and support the goal to cement the UK as a science and technology superpower by 2030”.
Workday says it works with more than 35 per cent of the FTSE-100 including the likes of Diageo, Lloyds, GSK and Rolls Royce as well as the Crown Commercial Service, Department for Education and The National Archives.
It also recently signed up David Lloyd Leisure, Compare the Market and Newcastle United in the fourth quarter of its latest financial year.
Workday said that the investment will support its strategic capital arm, Workday Ventures, the growth of the Workday Partner Ecosystem and the launch of its applications running in Amazon Web Services’ London region for UK cloud customers in early 2025.
Workday was founded in 2005 and completed its IPO in 2012. It now has more than 18,800 employees worldwide.
Workday is the latest bumper investment news for the UK
Documents filed with Companies House in March this year show that Workday employed 647 in the 12 months to the end of January 2023, a rise from 528.
The announcement comes after Workday revealed its total revenue increased by 17 per cent in the year to January 31, 2024, to $7.3bn.
Its annual gross profit for the 12 months also rose by almost 22 per cent to $5.4bn.
The news comes after US Coreweave announced plans last week to invest £1bn in the UK after opening a new office in London as its European headquarters.
Also last week, Scale AI picked London as its European headquarters while a British AI startup that is creating autonomous systems for vehicles announced it had secured over $1bn (£800m).