Admiral, the insurance company, plans to recruit a further 261 people into its Cardiff, Newport and Swansea offices, bringing the total it has taken on this year to 750. The group, based in Cardiff, will have increased its workforce by 11 per cent this year once the new positions are filled in June. Admiral, Wales’ only FTSE100 company, owns 13 brands including Diamond, Belle and Admiral, and had an annual turnover of £1bn last year.

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Forty high-skilled jobs have been created in West Wales following a £2m contract win for research and development company AB Connectors. The company, based in Abercynon, won the contract to supply equipment to defence electronics specialist Thales UK, for its new vehicle integration centre near Llanelli. AB Connectors is supplying cabling and harnessing systems as well as racking systems to house communications equipment for more than 100 vehicles for troops in Afghanistan.

A Cardiff hotelier has set up a company to convert period properties into environmentally-friendly hotels. Jolyon Joseph, founder of the the Green Duck Hotel Group, has the backing of his parents, property developer Mervyn Joseph and Ruth Joseph, a food writer and retail entrepreneur. Joseph is viewing several properties across Wales to add to his first two, Jolyon’s Boutique Hotel and Bar Cwtch, in Cardiff Bay. Joseph’s aim is to convert properties into modern, up-market hotels using sustainable building materials and environmental technologies.