Cirencester games firm Neon Play has expanded its workforce as the UK games market continues to grow despite the easing of lockdowns.

Latest figures show record sales for the UK games industry of £7.16 billion last year. The increase of 2% on 2020 was smaller than the previous year but means the industry has grown by nearly a third since 2019.

Oli Christie, CEO of Neon Play, said: "It's fantastic to see the UK games industry continuing to grow and it is no surprise that with numbers increasing considerably during the pandemic that players continue to love gaming as part of their lives. Mobile gaming in particular means that people can play games wherever and whenever they like."

The Gloucestershire firm, which started in 2010, has increased its team of artists, designers, producers and advertisers to 30, eight more than in 2019.

Its games like Idle Army Base and Idle Golf Club Tycoon have been big hits. The firm has reached 170 million game downloads in total. Its biggest game was Roller Splat which topped the US Charts for weeks and had 65 million downloads.

Oli said: "With a flexi-working policy, we've been able to hire new talent around the UK, from London to the Midlands to the North and that has enabled us to recruit the best people, wherever they live, while also still encouraging our team to move to the Cotswolds."