Key Facts

The Basics

Barnsley is a great place to do business! With a department dedicated to supporting and helping businesses to grow locally, a great range of workspace at affordable prices, easy access by road, rail, and air and a broad workforce the borough has a great offer for all sizes, shapes and sectors of business.

Demographics

Barnsley is located in South Yorkshire and positioned within the city regions of Sheffield and Leeds, and close to Manchester. The town has a history as a centre of coal mining and glass making and has had a market charter for over 750 years. The Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley has a population of just under 230,000 with a concentration of 82,000 people in the urban area surrounding and including the town centre. The geography of the town ranges from Pennine hills to the west of the borough through a river valley to wetlands in the east of the borough and population centres are arranged around the traditional community bases that sprung up around the mining industry and market towns.

Programmes

Barnsley Development Agency manages business support programmes to help local companies reach their potential and continue to innovate and grow. Our Enterprising Barnsley programme of support includes access to business coaching and networking events plus low cost workspace, graduate start up support and incubation support for early stage businesses with our programme partners University Campus Barnsley and BBIC.

Regional Position

Barnsley is uniquely situated within two of the recently established City Regions and Local Enterprise Partnerships, Leeds and Sheffield. This reflects Barnsley’s strong relationships with both city regions. Partnerships and programmes in both areas will help Barnsley to continue to be a great place to do business.

Transport

Barnsley is located in South Yorkshire and enjoys easy connections to the rest of the Yorkshire region and beyond thanks to the M1 and A1, train connections to Sheffield, Leeds, Huddersfield and Nottingham which link to mainline services across the UK, and air links from 4 international airports all located within 90 minutes drive of the borough at Leeds Bradford, Doncaster Sheffield, Manchester and East Midlands.