Assuring British sovereignty through digital supply chain resilience
Guest blog by Brig (Rtd) Sara Sharkey CBE, Strategy & Executive Director at Prolinx #techUKSupplyChainSecurityWeek
Sara Sharkey
Strategy Director, Prolinx Limited
As the UK sharpens its focus on secure supply chains, a deeper issue is becoming clear: digital concentration risk. Heavy reliance on a small group of suppliers, platforms and AI providers has introduced systemic vulnerabilities across digital services, data and artificial intelligence. Protecting UK national interests and sovereignty must therefore move beyond infrastructure location or data residency. It must address a more practical challenge: avoiding single points of failure and attack across the entire supply chain, from edge to enterprise.
The risk: lessons from supply chain failures
Recent cyber incidents highlight the consequences of concentration. The SolarWinds attack showed how a compromised software update could infiltrate thousands of organisations via a trusted supplier. Similarly, the NotPetya cyberattack spread through a software dependency, causing widespread disruption and financial loss. The Target data breach demonstrated how third-party access can expose entire enterprise systems.
More recent incidents affecting organisations such as Rolls-Royce Holdings and Marks and Spencer underline the same issue: over-reliance on singular digital services can severely delay recovery and undermine business continuity.
The pattern is consistent. Where systems are tightly coupled and dependent on single providers, disruption cascades rapidly—from edge systems to enterprise-wide failure—making recovery slower, more complex and more costly. Without resilience, digital supply chains become a point of systemic weakness.
The opportunity: diversified British sovereign capability
Addressing this challenge requires a shift from efficiency-led consolidation to resilience-driven diversification. The goal is not to eliminate efficiency, but to avoid overdependence.
Diversified capability ensures that no single provider, platform or model becomes a critical failure point. It strengthens resilience across infrastructure, data pipelines, AI models and software ecosystems, enabling systems to continue operating under stress. Where national interests demand autonomy, this diversification must include credible British sovereign continuity options.
Key enablers
Open source as a strategic asset
Open-source technologies offer transparency, auditability and flexibility. They allow organisations to understand and secure dependencies, reduce hidden risks and avoid vendor lock-in.
Locally developed sovereign capability
Investing in UK businesses and innovation aligns technology with national security and regulatory requirements while building domestic expertise and long-term economic value. It also reduces exposure to external control and embedded technological bias.
Controls, observability and testing
End-to-end observability, strong controls under compromise scenarios and rigorous testing are essential. These create trust, enable rapid feedback and improve resilience. As technologies evolve—including advanced AI systems capable of identifying and executing exploits—maintaining cryptographic authority, enforcing strong identity and access management, and continuously verifying trust boundaries becomes non-negotiable.
Together, these enablers reduce single-supplier risk while strengthening operational control and assurance.
The handrails: delivering resilience at scale
Diversification must be deliberate and well-architected to avoid fragmentation. Five principles are key:
- Interoperability by Design – Open standards ensure systems integrate and evolve without disruption
- Assured Open Source – Transparency must be paired with robust security and governance
- Multi-Supplier Strategies – Reducing dependency lowers systemic risk
- Edge-to-Enterprise Architecture – Systems must operate across distributed environments, even when disconnected
- Investment in UK Capability – Embedding sovereign backstops supports skills, intellectual property and sustainable national industries
A strategic imperative
In the digital age, sovereignty is defined by resilience. The ability to withstand disruption, avoid single points of failure and maintain control across supply chains is critical.
The path forward is clear: diversify capability, reduce dependency and design for resilience from edge to enterprise. Delivering this vision requires partners who can architect and operate secure, interoperable systems in practice, not just in principle balancing resilience, flexibility and control across the full digital landscape.
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Meet the team
Jill Broom
Head of Cyber Resilience, techUK
Jill leads the techUK Cyber Resilience programme, having originally joined techUK in October 2020 as a Programme Manager for the Cyber and Central Government programmes. She is responsible for managing techUK's work across the cyber security ecosystem, bringing industry together with key stakeholders across the public and private sectors. Jill also provides the industry secretariat for the Cyber Growth Partnership, the industry and government conduit for supporting the growth of the sector. A key focus of her work is to strengthen the public–private partnership across cyber to support further development of UK cyber security and resilience policy.
Before joining techUK, Jill worked as a Senior Caseworker for an MP, advocating for local communities, businesses and individuals, so she is particularly committed to techUK’s vision of harnessing the power of technology to improve people’s lives. Jill is also an experienced editorial professional and has delivered copyediting and writing services for public-body and SME clients as well as publishers.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Website:
- www.techuk.org/
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jill-broom-19aa824
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Annie Collings
Senior Programme Manager, Cyber Resilience, techUK
Annie is the Programme Manager for Cyber Resilience at techUK. She first joined as the Programme Manager for Cyber Security and Central Government in September 2023.
In her role, Annie supports the Cyber Security SME Forum, engaging regularly with key government and industry stakeholders to advance the growth and development of SMEs in the cyber sector. Annie also coordinates events, engages with policy makers and represents techUK at a number of cyber security events.
Before joining techUK, Annie was an Account Manager at a specialist healthcare agency, where she provided public affairs support to a wide range of medical technology clients. She also gained experience as an intern in both an MP’s constituency office and with the Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed. Annie holds a degree in International Relations from Nottingham Trent University.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Twitter:
- anniecollings24
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/annie-collings-270150158/
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Olivia Staples
Junior Programme Manager - Cyber Resilience, techUK
Olivia Staples joined techUK in May 2025 as a Junior Programme Manager in the Cyber Resilience team.
She supports the programs mission to promote cyber resilience by engaging key commercial and government stakeholders to shape the cyber resilience policy towards increased security and industry growth. Olivia assists in member engagement, event facilitation and communications support.
Before joining techUK, Olivia gained experience in research, advocacy, and strategic communications across several international organisations. At the Munich Security Conference, she supported stakeholder engagement and contributed to strategic communications. She also worked closely with local and national government stakeholders in Spain and Italy, where she was involved in policy monitoring and advocacy for both public and private sector clients.
Olivia holds an MSc in Political Science (Comparative Politics and Conflict Studies) from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a BA in Spanish and Latin American Studies from University College London (UCL).
Outside of tech, Olivia enjoys volunteering with local charities and learning Norwegian.
- Email:
- [email protected]
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Authors
Brig (Rtd) Sara Sharkey CBE
Strategy & Executive Director, Prolinx
