Record year for Sciontec as it plans to start Liverpool lab and office development Hemisphere One

Success driven by opening of Central Tech

Tech-focused developer Sciontec says it had a record year in 2025 – and says building work on its new £69m Liverpool office and lab development will start next year.

Public-private joint venture Sciontec says it posted £3.7m turnover for the year to September 2025, as well as seeing record occupancy over the 12 months.

It says that success was driven by the opening of Central Tech at the former Sensor City building in Liverpool city centre. The building, a local landmark thanks to its gold circuit board cladding, is billed as “a global hub for innovation in health, life sciences, technology and digitalisation”.

Central Tech opened in May last year and was at above 60% occupancy by financial year end on September 30. The site is now at 90% occupancy with tenants including IT firm Bellrock, IN4 Group, DefProc Engineering and LYVA Labs.

Sciontec’s Liverpool Science Park saw occupancy levels stay above 90% for the period. That complex is home to organisations including the Manufacturing Technology Centre, Elida Beauty, Pierian Biosciences and Renewvax.

Sciontec also manages the serviced office space at The Spine building in Paddington Village, on behalf of the Royal College of Physicians. Customers there include Zempler Bank, Marks & Clerk, Morgan Sindall, the Pandemic Institute and RTC North.

The company is set to develop the £69m Hemisphere One office and lab building close to The Spine. It says building work on the eight-storey red-brick scheme, which will include 150,000 sq ft of laboratory and research space, will start in April 2027.

Sciontec is a joint venture between Bruntwood SciTech, Liverpool City Council, Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Liverpool. In January 2026 Barbara Spicer succeeded Professor Mark Power, vice-chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University, as Sciontec chair.

Prof Power said: “We are pleased to report a strong and resilient performance over the past financial year. Against the backdrop of a challenging wider market, we have achieved record turnover and returned a ‘group’ profit once again.

“This has been underpinned by expanding our innovation portfolio and welcoming a record number of businesses into our spaces. Our team also works hard to maintain strong relationships with existing customers, which now number over 100.”

Barbara Spicer said: “These are hugely encouraging financial results and reflect the commitment of our team to delivering world-class innovation spaces right here in Liverpool and boosting the city region’s existing strengths in areas such as health and life sciences, materials chemistry, AI, digital, tech and advanced manufacturing.

“Consistent high levels of occupancy reinforce the market demand for new science and tech developments and we will be pushing ahead with confidence on our plans for HEMISPHERE One over the next year.”