He started on £6 a week, now he owns a £4 billion company

Sir Peter Rigby's story is one of remarkable success - and now he wants to give back to the city of his birth
-Credit: (Image: Reach Publishing Services Limited)


It is fair to say that Sir Peter Rigby has come a long way in his life. Born in central Liverpool in 1943, he grew up in a modest household in Crosby. It was a happy childhood, albeit with some tough moments. Peter was just 17 when his dad lost his eyesight and subsequently his job. It was a moment that changed the course of a life that would go on to found a hugely successful international business.

He told the Liverpool ECHO: "When my father lost his job I decided to leave school after my O-Levels and get a job. I thought I could make some money for the family. I was lucky to work for a company in Liverpool in the early days of computing. I started on £6 a week."

In that first job, a young Peter learnt IT skills around programming, designing and ultimately selling systems. His early career gave him the grounding he needed to feel that by his early thirties, he could go out on his own.

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He added: "I went to my bank manager and said I was going to go into business. I was married with two children, I'd had a good career in IT which gave me that grounding and I had saved £2,000. So I went in and asked for a loan."

But the budding entrepreneur did not get the response he wanted, being told any loan would have to be against his mortgage to which he recalls responding: "I said absolutely not. I said I would do it on my own instead."

While Sir Peter's ambition was to create an IT business, he couldn't do this with only the £2,000 he had saved, so instead he started a new recruitment company, which would go on to expand into Europe. He was then able to use the money made from that business to fund the start-up of a proper IT firm, which quickly got to grips with the growing technological revolution of the time.

He added: "I built a couple of mainframe computer bureaus, but when the PC came along in the early 80s, that was the thing that absolutely set IT on fire," explains Sir Peter. "My take on that, because I had been used to selling big, complex computers, was to see the PC as a connected device, rather than just something that sat at home. So I sold to big corporations and set up a big business in IT."

That IT business, SCC, is now Europe's largest independent IT service provider and the cornerstone business of the wider Rigby group, which includes a boutique hotel division, a commercial real estate business and a number of regional UK airports. At the age of 81, Sir Peter Rigby is the founder and chairman of a multinational business valued at more than £4 billion, with 10,000 staff and offices in 20 countries worldwide. In his spare time, he enjoys flying his personal helicopter - something he would have only dreamed of when a young boy grew up in Merseyside.

The hugely successful businessman has always wanted to give back, starting his first charity 40 years ago. Now he is reconnecting with the city of his birth to try and guide the next group of entrepreneurs. His charitable trust has pumped £1 million into creating the new Sir Peter Rigby Centre for Enterprise at the University of Liverpool, which will seek to transform the employability of university students, staff and other young people from the city through enterprise education and the teaching of entrepreneurial skills. The centre is hoping to reach 50,000 people within its first three years. He has also provided bursaries for students.

Sir Peter Rigby has launched a new centre for enterprise at the University of Liverpool
Sir Peter Rigby has launched a new centre for enterprise at the University of Liverpool

Sir Peter said: "The thing that brought me back to Liverpool is that a couple of years ago I was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Liverpool and made a couple of trips back, it really resonated with me, explains the business leader. "I had a happy childhood albeit very ordinary and quite tough in many ways, but this is a city of great character and great characters and coming back here really reminded me of my early years, so I was really happy to build an association with the city again and through the university, particularly to help young people.

"I do a lot of work with young people and particularly, because of my IT background, with digital skills. Today, frankly, you are very disadvantaged if you haven't got basic digital skills, so I am very keen to bring the digital economy alive at the lower end. Scousers are resilient people and when you go on your own you take lots of knocks and you need that resilience to see through your ideas and to develop them."

Asked for any advice from his years of success in business that young people could take on board, he adds: "You have got to work hard. There is no secret to success. Talk to any successful person and fundamentally it almost takes your life over. You have to be dedicated and driven. You need to have a vision, what do you want to do? Where do you want to go? It is like a life journey really. You have to do it in stages, you can't just go from A-Z, you have to grow in stages. You have to be prepared to take a chance.

"I am delighted to be working with the university. I believe the future is young people but it is tough today. One of the things I am very keen on is this digital divide. If you haven't got access to a device or an understanding of technology then you are really disadvantaged, how do you apply for a job?"

Sir Peter said he is concerned about the advancement of Artificial Intelligence and thinks young people must be educated on the subject, adding: "AI has the capability of being used against society and being weaponised. Businesses will argue that it will take cost out, but what that will do in essence will make more demand on people to have digital skills, because the jobs that AI displaces are those where digital skills are deployed. It will certainly impact lives and along with that comes the concern you have of the manipulation of people's lives and invading people's privacy. People need to be educated on the dangers of this technology.

"We have these big tech companies that almost see themselves as being above the law and bigger and stronger than governments. You must be conscious of giving out information. Data is what AI feeds off. One without the other doesn't work. When someone asks you for your personal details, you need to be very careful."

Speaking about the new centre and Sir Peter's support, Professor Tim Jones, Vice-Chancellor at the University of Liverpool said: “We are incredibly grateful to Sir Peter for his generous gift to the University – and for the time and expertise he so willingly shares with us in his role as our Honorary President for Enterprise. It is greatly appreciated.

“We are in no doubt that the new Sir Peter Rigby Centre for Enterprise will be transformative. I am passionate about the role that entrepreneurship can and must play here at the University of Liverpool – for the benefit of our students and staff as well as for the regional and UK economy.”