Today’s news was brought to you by TD SYNNEX – the UK’s number one solutions distributor. The UK tech sector has seen record investment growth across 2021.
A new government report shows that tech start-ups and scale-ups received £29.4bn over the year.
It was more than two-and-a-half times the £11.5bn invested in 2020, although the pandemic had a massive impact that year.
It was also twice as much as the £14.7bn invested in Germany in 2021 and three times the £9.7bn invested in France.
Altogether, a total investment of £89.5bn was injected into the European tech sector.
29 new unicorns – start-ups with a value of US$1bn or greater – were created in the UK across 2021, bringing the total to 115.
They included fashion e-commerce platform Depop, digital challenger bank Starling and car auction platform Motorway.
The report also suggested that the success of the UK tech sector was increasingly spreading throughout the country.
With most unicorns still based in London, nine were outside the capital.
More than a third (35%) of existing unicorns are now outside London, as are 35% of expected future unicorns.
Cambridge was the top tech hub for unicorns outside the capital, closely followed by Manchester.
Edinburgh, Leeds, Newcastle and Cardiff also featured prominently.
‘Network of digital excellence’ driving job creation across the UK
Tech Nation’s founding CEO, Gerard Grech, said it was increasingly apparent that the UK was accomplished in developing start-ups and scale-ups that become successful global businesses.
He added that entrepreneurship enabled a “true network of digital excellence” to emerge right across the UK, driving job and wealth creation.
Saul Klein of venture capital firm LocalGlobe said that one key way the UK could differentiate itself from global competitors was in taking an ethical approach to building businesses.
The report also showed that there had been a 50% increase in tech job vacancies in 2021 compared to the previous year.
Vacancies for tech professionals now made up 12% of all job vacancies in the UK, with half of them located outside London and the Southeast.
The most in-demand role was for software developers, with an average salary of just over £64,000 offered.
Some specialist roles attracted high average salaries, including Java developers (£80,000) and IT systems architects (£93,000).
