I grew up in North Wales and have been working in London in the tech sector for the last 10 years. Considering a move back to the mountains, genuinely interested in what the tech scene is like there now? Can you name some companies?

Cool! I'm no expert, but optics, aerospace, and defense mainly that I'm aware of. Airbus has a huge wing manufacturing plant in Broughton which I'm sure helps anchor the industry, they have massive tie-ins with the local universities through apprenticeships. Prototype mirror segments for the E-ELT project are also being built here[1] (last I checked; there's been some budget problems). I don't know everything that goes on of course, but my own job searches have turned up both interesting-looking embedded work and more run-of-the-mill web stuff, despite my earlier comment. I've seen lots of datacentre/hosting type companies kicking about as well.

It's no Silicon Valley - Wrexham, the population centre, isn't quite (though very nearly) big enough to hold the interest of the intellectually curious - but it's a lot more vibrant than you hear about. Here is the business directory of the business park in St Asaph where they're building the mirror segments:[2]

[1] http://www.glyndwrinnovations.co.uk/articles/latest_news/the... [2] http://www.stasaphbusinesspark.org.uk/directory/

other than this link: http://www.itv.com/news/wales/technology/ could you point us to news or tech portals that talk more about "serious" and "non-serious" :-) tech happenings in Wales, genuinely interested!

Edit: seems there's this article [0] as well but its a bit dated.

[0] http://www.dailypost.co.uk/business/business-news/north-wale...