Sponge UK soaking up success at PSP with huge recruitment drive

Digital learning has catapulted one Plymouth company into a world leader for its creativity and excellence.

Sponge’s growing international reach and reputation means it’s now aiming to recruit 36 people for 12 different roles by the end of this year.

The company, based at the Plymouth Science Park, has rapidly grown to become one of the largest custom digital learning providers in Europe.

Additional teams are located in London, Bristol and Nottingham, with its newest office having opened in Dublin at the start of the year.

The company is planning further expansion into Europe and the USA next year.

Sponge delivers bespoke digital learning to improve people and business performance for multi-national brands.

The use of the latest technologies allows for creative learning solutions that inspire and motivate learners while delivering on serious business objectives.

“Our solutions make a real difference to learners in the corporate world. We recently delivered a virtual reality (VR) project for Royal Mail, highlighting the dangers of dog attacks on a postal route.”

“It was a safe and effective way to deliver a ’real life’ lesson in how to avoid a common hazard,” explains Louise Pasterfield, Founder and Managing Director of Sponge.

“To educate employees about compliance and data protection laws, we produced the GDPR ‘Sorted!’ digital learning game that provides an entertaining and engaging platform to educate learners on what is typically a very dry subject.”

“We’ve also used the latest technologies and learning methodologies to improve customer services for leading insurance firm, AXA,” added Louise.

Originally starting out as a family-run digital marketing company in 2004, Sponge quickly grew a reputation as a digital learning provider, winning Learning Technologies Company of the Year Award in 2014 – an award the company is currently a finalist for again this year.

“As a rapidly growing company, we’re always looking for new talent. We’re currently looking to recruit at all levels, from first time employment to those at the very top of their field, in all departments from project management, learning design and development to sales and marketing, finance and recruitment.”

“We encourage anyone interested in a career at Sponge to get in touch.”

The company is keen to employ local talent - currently 40% of its employees are alumni of the University of Plymouth. It’s expected that staff numbers will rise to 300 by 2022 as Sponge continues to expand its operations overseas.

Sponge has found Plymouth Science Park to be an ideal home as the company’s forward-thinking ethos is reflected in the way PSP is operated and run.

“The location is perfect. We’re surrounded by stunning views with good parking facilities for staff and visitors.”

“PSP has a good management team dedicated to on-site firms with the provision of exceptionally fast broadband speeds.”

“We’re in good company with other media and digital technology companies, which helps boost the city’s growing reputation as a tech innovation hub – something we whole-heartedly embrace,” explained Louise.