6 step digital strategy to make the UK a global leader in digital growth

From Monday 13^th June to Friday 13^th June 2022, London Tech Week took place, and it was a chance for the tech community to come together and share knowledge, insights, and opportunities. The event itself had over 20,000 attendees across the week with 300 speakers, including Chancellor Rishi Sunak and the UK Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy, Chris Philp.

How the UK is becoming a global tech leader                                                            

Rishi Sunak launched London Tech Week, where he declared that the UK has created more tech start-ups than any other country, bar the US and China. He also pointed out the UK’s strengths within tech sectors, including FinTech, life sciences, and the creative industries. Whilst the UK has its strengths, it also has its weaknesses. Rishi Sunak acknowledged the digital skills gap in the tech industry and how the UK has plans to attract international talent, by offering visas to those who graduate from a global top 50 university, to stay in the UK to explore, work, and study, and invent.

The UK’s digital strategy

Digital Minister Chris Philp also spoke about the digital skills gap among five other areas of interest that cement the government’s digital strategy to strengthen the UK’s global position as a science and technology superpower. The Digital Strategy sets out to support the digital economy, and could grow the UK tech sector by an additional £41.5 billion by 2025, and create a further 678,000 jobs. The six areas outlined in the strategy include:

1.     Infrastructure

With the majority of the world now being online, the digital infrastructure of each country plays a vital role in a growing economy. People rely on connectivity for work, travel, and everyday life. The UK public is already in a privileged position where 92% of the UK landmass is currently covered by a good 4G signal from at least one operator, so the majority of people have access to online information, meaning they can apply for jobs, bank online, attend courses or simply connect with other people. However, with so many people being online, lots of sensitive data is produced every day, and therefore, the digital infrastructure needs to be secure to minimise the risk of data breaches and cyber-attacks. This investment into the digital infrastructure will see a rise in many jobs including  Infrastructure Architects, Analysts, and Engineers.

2.     Ideas and Intellectual Property

To flourish, businesses need new ideas and intellectual property. The Government has released an innovation strategy, which sets out to make the UK a global hub for innovation by 2035. Actions include:

• Increasing annual public investment in Research and Development (R&D) to £22 billion.
•  Supporting 30,000 senior managers of small and medium-sized firms to boost their business performance, resilience, and growth.
• Investing £25 million of funding into the Connecting Capability Fund, a programme focused on generating collaborations between universities to achieve more effective commercialisation with external business partners.

3.     Skills and Talent

In the UK currently 80% of all jobs advertised now require digital skills, however, the lack of talent is causing delays in companies’ digital transformations, and It is estimated that the digital skills gap costs the UK economy as much as £63 billion a year in potential GDP. To tackle this, the government has initiatives in place to raise the base level of skills for the next generation to enter the workforce. This includes:

• Introducing coding in primary schools.
• DofE investing £750 million to support high-quality teaching of science and engineering.
• Universities creating new AI and data science conversion courses, which included 1,000 scholarships for people from underrepresented groups.

As well as making sure the future generations are well equipped with the right skills, the government is also ensuring the current workforce has access to essential digital skills training by providing skills boot camps, fully funded courses and apprenticeships that will help upskill employees.

4.     Financial Digital Growth

As mentioned previously the UK is already a hub for growing digital businesses and has more start-ups than any other European country. The UK will continue to support the next generation of tech companies by running a Digital Growth Grant competition and continuing to invest in the acceleration of tech start-ups and scale-ups across the UK.

5.     A Nationwide Approach

It’s important to make sure that digital transformation is happening beyond London, and that all regions can benefit from funding and innovations. The Government plans to do this by developing programmes that aim to increase AI adoption in sectors located outside London and the Southeast. They will also continue to support Local Digital Skills Partnerships which bring together employers, regional academia, the local public sector, and training providers to develop targeted digital skills programmes.

6.     Global Leadership

The UK wants to become an advocate for all things digital and tech, from establishing itself as a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) to championing data governance and having international rules, regulations, and standards reflecting its democratic values. The UK wants to be at the forefront of shaping global digital innovation.

This new UK Digital Strategy will lead to thousands of new jobs, and a demand for skills, and services, and therefore the demand for IT and Tech professionals across all sectors will continue to grow as well.