• Legal Recruitment firm Clayton Legal is opening an additional office in Manchester city centre. The new office space, it says, signals a “real step change” in line with its growth plans across the region where the company will continue its hiring efforts. Its head office remains in Preston in the North-West.

• Code First Girls, a female-founded UK business that supports women into coding education and employment for free, has announced a £4.5m Series A funding. According to Bdaily News, the fundraising comes from female angel investors and a leading investment firm to accelerate the company’s growth and close the gender gap in the traditionally male-dominated tech industry.

The funding will enable Code First Girls to reach its ambitious target of providing one million opportunities to women to learn how to code and secure a job in tech over the next five years. As part of its ambition to provide one million opportunities to women, alongside free online courses at every stage of the pipeline, Code First Girls plans to put over 26,000 women through the ‘CFGdegree’ and place them into tech roles over the next five years.

• IGA Talent Solutions, a specialist recruitment firm backed by recruitment entrepreneur James Caan’s private equity house Hamilton Bradshaw Group, is to expand in Ireland. The new office in Cork is IGA’s fifth outpost as the business continues to expand in the UK and overseas. Led by Mark Stanton, the office is based out of Republic of Work on the South Mall in Cork and will support delivery for existing UK clients and work with Irish-based businesses looking for talent in a post-Covid world. The move will see the firm invest €1m (£0.87m) into the city in the next three years and create up to 20 new jobs in the area.

• Keystream Group has opened a new regional office in the North-East of England. The Newcastle office will be the first outside London for the recruitment and consultancy group, and it will be run by Heather Gordon. She specialises in NHS recruitment for digital, analytics and PMO professionals. Keystream says the new office will enable it to widen its recruitment reach and match talent to vacancies in the North.

• Tech recruitment firm Next Ventures is opening a new office in Spinningfields, Manchester’s financial centre. Andrew Mcloughlin is appointed practice director emerging technologies, with the firm also hiring experienced recruiters at the new location.

• Pertemps has announced its partnership with charity Sense to help people with complex disabilities find new careers. The Warwickshire-based recruitment firm will support with funding and recruitment input to help beneficiaries of the national disability charity. Sense will advise Pertemps on recruitment processes and materials to ensure they continue to make careers as accessible as possible to all.

• Russell Taylor Group has launched a new initiative to equip its workforce with the skills to strengthen the economy. In its own Training Academy, the company is expanding its home-grown talent focus to train, develop and upskill its recruitment teams – from apprentices just joining the business to existing staff on a route to senior management roles.