Dublin sixth most expensive city for start-up costs, says survey

Dublin is the world's sixth most expensive city in terms of start-up costs, according to Knight Frank's signature commercial research publication Global Cities: the 2017 Report, which was launched recently. This gives it a cost advantage over some of its principal competitors such as London, Paris, New York and San Francisco.

The report compares property markets in 32 of the world's leading cities and is focused this year on tech and creative business clusters. Among the cities analysed are London, New York, Paris, Boston, Dublin, Mexico City, Shanghai, San Francisco, Seattle, Berlin, Hong Kong, Mumbai and Dubai.

"Firms like Apple and Google are looking far beyond established tech cities in their search for talent," says Catherine Noble, communications manager at Knight Frank. "The result of this shift towards a tech and creative economy is that cities are having to adapt to match the lifestyles of the knowledge workers, who in turn draw in major companies seeking to recruit the best staff.

“This is resulting in more mixed-use development, as demand increases for shops, homes and leisure near to places of work. This is particularly true in bohemian, trendy districts that are popular with millennials. It’s also having a major impact on how firms enable their staff and companies use of office space.”

Ms Noble says that the digital revolution has already transformed property markets in places such as New York, San Francisco and London, and its effects are now migrating to all the leading business centres. “Shanghai a few years ago was thought of as a manufacturing city, but now has a vibrant start-up scene,” notes Ms Noble.