The UK has become the third country worldwide to hit a major milestone within the tech industry – reaching a value of $1 trillion (£764 billion).
Previously this achievement has only been achieved by the US and China.
The UK tech industry’s value surpassed Germany’s by over 50 per cent and is almost five times larger than France and Sweden’s.
Both public and private technology firms in the UK are included in the valuation.
Back in 2018, the UK industry had a value of £340 billion, but between 2020 and 2021, the extreme digital transformation created by the pandemic caused the industry’s value to shoot up by nearly 50 per cent.
What has caused the tech industry to grow?
Throughout this time, there has been an increased amount of venture capital investments which helped improve the valuations of UK tech firms.
According to a report, the UK now houses 13 decacorns (privately held firms that exceed the valuation of £10 billion). Out of 13 UK deacorns, eight are fintech firms – a dominating area in the tech world, which brought in £8.56 billion funding in 2021.
Financial technology company Revolut, data operator and developer Global Switch, plus semiconductor and software company Arm are all fintech companies that have contributed to the UK tech industry’s valuation.
Another contribution to these figures is the rising number of unicorns (startups that have a valuation of over 1 million) in the UK, most of which are in London but 44 of which are elsewhere.
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