Cyber set as a main pillar for growth and development in the Industrial Strategy

The newly published Industrial Strategy sets an ambitious vision for the UK to become one of the world’s top three destinations to build, scale, and invest in high-growth technology businesses by 2035. It aims to unlock nationwide growth, security, and opportunity by boosting investment, accelerating R&D, and addressing key infrastructure and regulatory challenges.

Crucially, for our sector, the Industrial Strategy highlights cyber security as one of the ‘frontier industries’ in the Digital and Technologies Sector Plan (one of the 8 growth sectors) that will drive the UK’s economic growth. Cyber security is recognised as vital to economic stability, highlighting its broad importance and the need for implementation across all sectors.

The key interventions for cyber in the sector plan are:

Accelerating commercialisation of cyber research by investing an initial £10 million to expand Cyber ASAP, enabling support for 25 academic teams each year. This is alongside confirming £2 million in funding for the Cyber AI Hub in Belfast.

Backing start-ups with an initial £6 million investment to build on the success of the Cyber Runway accelerator. This will support 60 start-ups annually, across all stages of growth, through mentoring, skills training, and access to professional networks.

Developing domestic tech talent and creating high-quality jobs in underserved regions by offering additional CyberFirst bursaries as part of the TechFirst package. We will also establish new partnerships to deliver skills programmes tailored to support the National Cyber Force and the wider defence and intelligence community.

Encouraging the adoption of secure-by-design technologies through an initial £24 million investment to drive uptake of the Capability Hardware Enhanced RISC Instructions (CHERI) architecture — a blueprint for the next generation of secure computer chips.

Publishing a Cyber Growth Action Plan in summer 2025, providing a strategic roadmap for future sector growth, informed by independent expert advice from the University of Bristol and Imperial College London.

The Cyber pillar also highlights the building of the new National Cyber Innovation Centre in Cheltenham to foster collaboration between government, businesses and academia striving to tackle current and future cyber threats. This asset is designed to assist the growth of ambitious, world-leading cyber companies and attract an additional £1 billion of investment to the Golden Valley development.

Impact on the sector:

techUK welcomes the Government’s announcement of the Industrial Strategy and the opportunities it creates for the cyber security sector. The Strategy’s recognition of cyber as a key driver of economic growth and innovation signals greater potential for investment, development, and sectoral expansion. In particular, the emphasis on supporting SMEs and developing tech skills will help maintain the UK’s leadership in global cyber security, both in technology and operational practice. techUK looks forward to collaborating with government and industry partners to help deliver this strategy and unlock new opportunities for cyber as a catalyst for economic growth.

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

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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