The firm’s northern hub will be based in the city’s Daily Express building (pictured) and will be run by an initial team of 10 people.

The Manchester office will be led by executive director Kelly McKnight, who joined Verve earlier this year, and supported by staff including Verve director Graham Brown, who has relocated from London, and associate directors Kim Howard and Peter Latham.

Research managers Ashleigh Waterhouse and Ben McIntyre has also joined the Manchester hub, while former FlexMR and Insites Consulting researcher Cherry Huang has been appointed network and research executive.

Graduates Charlie Lancaster, Emily Tutton and Laura Ryan have also been named as part of the Manchester hub team.

The Manchester office follows the opening of centres for excellence by Verve in South Africa and Australia in recent months.

Andrew Cooper, founder and chief executive at Verve, said: “Our Manchester base offers a little bit of everything that makes Verve so exciting right now – we’ve got researchers at all different stages of their career, we’ve got those with different research specialisms and we have others coming in to develop new products and propositions to bring to the market in 2022.

“It’s also a fun and vibrant place for hybrid working – so, really, represents absolutely everything we want the business to be this year.”