How digital growth can power every UK nation and region

On the 20November techUK held its UK Digital Economy Conference at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh. During the event, we launched the 2025 Local Digital Index in partnership with The Data City, highlighting the strength of the UK’s digital economy and outlining what we can do to drive digital growth across the UK’s nations and regions.

The event touched on critical themes shaping the UK’s digital economy such as digital skills, infrastructure, planning, and the importance of scaling businesses to drive success across the UK’s nations and regions. Thanks to Informed Solutions, Virgin Media O2, and British Business Bank for their support in sponsoring the event and to all of the speakers for taking part.

The event opened with a keynote from Kate Forbes MSP, Deputy First Minister of Scotland and Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Gaelic. She highlighted the strength of Scotland’s tech sector, noting its position as the leading destination for foreign direct investment outside London and its strong foundations in talent, education, and start up development. Forbes set out a vision for Scotland to lead the UK’s technology sector, with a particular focus on scaling businesses and harnessing emerging technologies such as AI.

Following the keynote, Forbes met with business leaders from across industry to discuss key issues including digital infrastructure, skills development, digital planning, and strategies for supporting the development of emerging technologies.

Data from the Local Digital Index was then presented by Paul Connell, The Data City, and Hollie Hodgson, Tussell. They highlighted the continued strength of the UK tech sector, which is estimated at £101 billion GVA, employing 1.7 million people and with a predicted growth rate of 8.9% for the next 3 years. While the golden triangle of London, Oxford and Cambridge continues to be the leading location for private investment, Manchester, Bristol, Leeds, and Edinburgh are all showing growth potential with growing tech clusters. Digital infrastructure and skills are key to regional growth, and they pointed to progress in gigabit and 5G coverage, the rise of data centres beyond traditional hubs, and the need for targeted interventions to boost digital skills, infrastructure, and procurement practices. Procurement has the potential to strengthen growth and development across sectors and regions, with the UK spending £434 billion annually on procurement. However, there is a need to boost SME engagement and provide support for adopting emerging technologies such as AI. Driving regional growth ultimately requires improved access to investment, aligning policy with local needs and place based solutions to ensure that the growth of the digital economy is even and felt across every part of the UK.

This was followed by a series of insightful panels touching on key areas such as digital skills, investment, and infrastructure. The opening panel was chaired by Ketty Lawrence (Scottish Women in Tech), and featured Paul McKean (JISC), Anna Ashton-Scott (The Data Lab), Joanna Munnelly (Greater Manchester Combined Authority), and Jill McKinney (Sunderland Software City) discussed the importance of digital skills and skills development. The panel discussed embedding digital skills early in education as an essential feature for driving skills growth, and this should be done through vocational pathways tailored to specific professions. Speakers discussed the importance of a holistic approach that integrates skills development into policy and the importance of digital skills development preceding policy when it comes to broader strategic priorities, such as AI adoption. Speakers called on businesses to play an active role in skills development, to review skills strategies and to pursue local place- based approaches to skills development to ensure they’re tailored to keep them locally relevant. The discussion highlighted the importance of digital inclusion, ensuring equitable skills growth across the economy, which in turn drives greater growth across the digital economy.

This was followed by a panel on innovation, investment and supporting scale ups chaired by Mark Sterritt (British Business Bank), and featuring Patricia El Jichi (Par Equity), Professor Steven Drost (CodeBase Scotland), Michelle Ferguson (CBI Scotland), and Hollie Hodgson (Tussell). The panel discussed the role of scale up growth in driving the economy and highlighted the strong potential of technology scale ups, noting that tech investment typically delivers faster returns compared to other sectors. The speakers highlighted the importance of a strong local ecosystem and locally based investors in creating a supportive environment for scale ups. They agreed that successful scaling depends on strong networks within that ecosystem and an entrepreneurial mindset. The panel also stressed the need to make Scotland an attractive destination for scale ups by leveraging its cost advantage, using government procurement as a growth driver, addressing infrastructure gaps and playing to the advantages that no other area can offer.

Julian David, CEO of techUK held a fireside chat with Seth Finnegan, UK CEO of Informed Solutions. Seth has a personal connection with Scotland and shared Informed Solutions’ growth story in Scotland, highlighting how the company has established a significant presence and built a substantial footprint across the country. He highlighted the importance of government run programmes like CivTech in enabling Informed Solutions’ growth, noting that the company has participated in five CivTech rounds! The competition provided by programmes like CivTech offers a pathway to national and wider rollout. Seth highlighted that growing the tech sector and local ecosystem must have political buy in and follow through, this is crucial. A joined up approach to business growth across governments and industry allows for collaboration, innovation, and a pathway to grow scalable solutions and drive business growth.

The final panel of the day discussed digital infrastructure and the importance of robust digital infrastructure in unlocking economic potential across the UK’s nations and regions. Michael Thompson (VMO2), Brian McIntyre (Informed Solutions), Drew Murphy (National Energy System Operator), Wendy Shearer (Pulsant) and chaired by Margaret Moore (Sopra Steria) explored the importance of digital infrastructure in driving Scotland’s growth strategy. The conversation touched on the need for strong telecoms and connectivity as the base for strong innovation, digital services, and economic growth. Data centres were also identified as key enablers of driving this growth, underpinning critical services across the digital economy. Once again, there was a call for a join up approach across government and industry to allow for the development of strong infrastructure. Strategic energy investment and holistic infrastructure planning were highlighted as essential, with industry involvement in shaping these plans seen as critical.

The was closed with a keynote from Brian Baglow, Founder & CEO, Scottish Games Network, who highlighted the strength of the Games Sector in Scotland and the huge potential in collaboration across the tech and gaming sectors. The games sector is worth $200 billion annually, and in the UK the sector has a strong regional spread, with large companies such as Rockstar Games based in Scotland. Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto, two of the biggest games in the world, can both point to their routes, development and growth in Scotland, showing the country’s significant role in global gaming. Gaming can act as a tool for development, skills, innovation, and community building, ultimately driving growth and engagement across sectors. However, it has been underutilised to date, with the sector too often acting in isolation. Baglow highlighted the potential that collaboration between gaming and the tech sector can drive and how this positions Scotland to lead in creating new products, services and experiences that benefit the wider economy.

To conclude, the UKDEC 2025 highlighted the strength of the digital economy across the UK, and the importance of investment, collaboration, infrastructure and joined up policy approached in driving further growth and delivering equitable regional growth. Aligning national ambitions and policy with local priorities across key areas such as AI, scale up strategy, and digital infrastructure will ensure that every part of the UK can share in the benefits of a thriving tech ecosystem.

For more information on the UK’s digital economy, and regional strengths, please visit techUK’s Local Digital Index 2025.

Nations and Regions Programme activities

techUK champions the tech sector throughout the UK. We work with local authorities, devolved government, and local and national policy makers to advocate for the tech sector in strengthening economic growth and resilience across the nations and regions. Visit the programme page here