Many congratulations to King Edward’s School Year 11 student Henry Moore, who after excelling on the sim racing circuit over the last year and recently winning the British Formula Ford 1600 Championship, has just signed a professional esports contract with Guild Esports, which is co-owned by David Beckham.
Joining Guild Esports as one of their youngest professional sim racers will see Henry go head-to-head with renowned teams like Aston Martin and Williams on iconic virtual tracks. Driving on the iRacing circuit, Henry has previously come up against and beaten the likes of F1 World Champion Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri.
After sitting his GCSEs this summer, Henry can look forward to training at Guild’s London HQ.
Luke Jones, VP of Commercial, Esports & Gaming at Guild Esports, said, “We’ve been following Henry’s journey for a while now. From winning the previous support series for British F4 Esports to being identified as a rising young talent – this signing made complete sense for us.
“With Henry racing at a high national level, this has allowed teams like ours to gain visibility and welcome him to Guild. We’re now excited for him to join the academy set-up and start his development journey with our experienced coaching team.”
Esports is a popular co-curricular sport at KES, with teams competing in the British Esports Champs. School clubs, including the Girls into Gaming Club, see pupils playing a mix of Rocket League and Minecraft. Gaming takes place in the school’s Creative Media Suite, developed in partnership with Lenovo and Microsoft.
Whether as a gamer, marketer, event planner, agent or developer, the multi-million pound rapidly growing esports industry offers a vast amount of career pathways in the ever-evolving landscape of competitive gaming.
Like Henry, KES alumni, Tobin Leigh, was an accomplished professional sim driver at the age of 16 for Lazarus Esports, and continued racing whilst studying Business Management at the University of Plymouth. Post university, Tobin has worked with Veloce, the racing, gaming and lifestyle media platform, and Quadrant, the brand set up by F1’s Lando Norris, before recently setting up his own esports venture called PACENOTE, to help brands capitalise on the gaming industry.
Tobin explained, “Motorsport and gaming are linked much more closely than most people expect. Current F1 Champion Max Verstappen is very public about racing all the time on his simulator to help hone his driving skills. For me, after I had spent a few years competing in esports, I was able to leverage that experience to work in the worlds of Motorsport and Formula 1 straight after university, and the opportunities I have gained from my background in gaming have been unbelievable.
“Best of luck to Henry – you never know what opportunities will come from involvement in the esports world!”