Improving digital skills sits at the heart of the new digital strategy, as the economy currently misses out on £63bn in output due to a lack of talent
DCMS celebrates growth of the UK’s digital economy: At London Tech Week, the UK Government unveiled a new strategy to grow and level up the economy and create more high-skilled, high-wage jobs by establishing the country as a leading digital market. The UK Digital Strategy coincided with data showing that over £12bn in venture capital funding had been secured by the country’s tech startups and scaleups so far this year – more than China and just behind the US. According to DCMS, the UK tech sector has grown two and a half times faster than the economy as a whole since 2017 and it raised more private capital and saw more public listings than any EU member state in 2021. The Government is seeking to build on this success in order to develop a more innovative, inclusive and competitive digital economy.
Unleashing the power of tech to transform the economy: DCMS’s plan to cement the UK’s position as a global tech superpower fuses cross-government tech and digital policies into a unified roadmap. The strategy focuses on six key areas:
Digital foundations;
Ideas and intellectual property (IP);
Skills and talent;
Financing digital growth;
Spreading prosperity and levelling up; and
Enhancing the UK’s place in the world.
To ensure that the UK tech industry is “fit for the future”, the Government wants to bring together experts to form a new Digital Skills Council to tackle the skills gap and to stimulate the long-term growth of scaleups through the British Business Bank, InnovateUK and domestic sources of capital, including pension funds. Encouragingly for the Government, estimates suggest that its strategy could increase the UK tech sector’s annual gross value add (GVA, i.e. its contribution to the economy) by an additional £41.5bn by 2025, and create a further 678,000 jobs.
A mixture of (mostly) existing initiatives and some new ones: Under the ideas and IP pillar of the Digital Strategy, the Government has announced a review of the UK’s large-scale computer processing capabilities, which are vital for powering AI and IoT technologies. Its focus on skills (demonstrated, for example, by the funding of 2,000 scholarships) is also important as the country currently forgoes £63bn in economic value due to unavailable talent – a problem that the telecoms industry has stated is holding back the pace of its fibre deployments post-Brexit. In fact, the strategy makes a priority the rollout of world-class digital infrastructure, as well the implementation of a regulatory regime that is both consumer-oriented and investment-friendly. While the plan does not appear to present any new pledges here, it does restate the commitment to delivering quality fixed and mobile connectivity.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uks-digital-strategy
