The tech export boom shows the UK is leading innovation at a crucial time

The UK has been at the vanguard of technological change, with our tech creators, innovators and risk takers helping shape the digital world around us.

Whether you are tracking your heart rate on a run, finding ways to be carbon neutral, taking education to the next level, or increasing financial inclusion, the UK’s tech businesses paint one of the most colourful and creative pictures in the world.

At London Tech Week there will be no shortage of opportunities for businesses to learn more about global markets where they can take their products.  

Tech Nation’s latest findings in its Unlocking Tech Global Report show our firms’ digital tech exports are projected to grow by 35 per cent by 2025, which would result in an incredible £8.15 billion worth of tech exports and bring total digital tech exports to £31.45 billion by 2025. That’s an exciting outlook for all our UK exporters up and down the country. It means new markets, more opportunities and higher growth.

Tech Nation has named the US and Canada – along with Israel, The Netherlands and Germany – as among the countries that UK tech companies should be looking to as their next markets in a new trading environment.

This government is already ensuring we make it easier for these businesses to export as we work on a trade deal with the US, and our accession to CPTPP. And there will be more to come.

We are determined that the trade deals we want to secure will have ambitious, modern digital chapters forged at their heart, and we will pursue leading-edge provisions that cover anything from cross border data flows, to cyber security.

As the fifth largest digital tech services exporter in the world, at £23.3bn in 2019, we are already on a strong standing to keep rising in the ranks. With our favourable R&D environment, world renowned research institutions, and of course no shortage of skills, we have the right combination of factors to ensure our exporters can grow to the level needed to take their products global.

This week we will be speaking to businesses large and small about the strides they are taking and the opportunities they are creating to place the UK as Europe’s tech nation.

And there could be no more crucial time for UK tech businesses to step out and share their solutions with the world. Our shared global challenges put these businesses at the forefront of emerging trends from the home working revolution, to the acceleration of e-commerce, and the push for clean growth.  

And we will continue to ensure that businesses have the support they need. Whether through our Export Academy and Digital Trade Network in the Asia Pacific, the UK’s international network of tech hubs with outposts in India, Brazil and South Africa among others, through government-funded tech accelerators such as LORCA or investment in digital skills.  

At home, tech will underpin our infrastructure revolution of national renewal to unite and level up the UK.

To achieve this aim and meet our ambition to build back better in support of economic recovery and jobs right across the country, the government will publish a new digital strategy later this year.

We will build on the UK’s strengths in cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing and encourage people to turn ideas into new businesses and jobs, while supporting businesses to embrace the benefits new technologies bring.

UK AI businesses are finding success in markets all over the world, like SafeToNet, the online child safety company, which recently launched its safeguarding software in Germany, and saw a 54 per cent increase in sales.

We will look at ways to build a highly skilled digital workforce across every region of the UK, so people can shift into the digital or tech sectors or digitise their own businesses. And we will make sure we have a pro-competitive, pro-innovation, agile, and proportionate regulatory regime alongside world-class, next generation infrastructure.

We are also investing in research and development to make the UK a science superpower and so it is easier for top global talent in these fields to come to our shores.

Our tech exporters are breaking new ground every day, and they are in a good position to be setting their sights on markets around the globe where their innovation can make a real difference.  

London Tech Week can inspire those which had not thought about exporting to make that next step and encourage those that have already found success globally to show just how great UK tech can be.

Graham Stuart MP is Minister for Exports. Caroline Dinenage MP is Minister of State for Culture and Digital.