Technology companies lead revival

There are more than 270,000 UK tech­nol­o­gy busi­ness­es help­ing to make our econ­o­my the most inno­v­a­tive, con­nect­ed and con­fi­dent in the world. The reach of the UK tech sec­tor is far and wide. The social and eco­nom­ic impact of our tech com­pa­nies can be traced across devel­oped and emerg­ing mar­kets.

UK Trade & Invest­ment (UKTI) con­firms the sig­nif­i­cance of the sec­tor and acknowl­edges its role as one of the largest wealth cre­ators. Tech in the UK has been one of the fastest-grow­ing sec­tors over the last decade. And this is also true of the grow­ing glob­al pres­ence of UK tech com­pa­nies.

This con­fi­dence is borne out by the evi­dence. Among the G7 nations, the UK is the high­est net exporter of com­put­er and infor­ma­tion ser­vices. In 2011, the UK export­ed tele­coms ser­vices worth around £5 bil­lion, com­put­er ser­vices worth around £7 bil­lion and infor­ma­tion ser­vices of around £2 bil­lion.

UKTI sup­port­ed 2,799 com­pa­nies involved in ICT dur­ing 2012–13, and engaged in 67 tech­nol­o­gy events and mis­sions. I have had per­son­al expe­ri­ence of this as I joined a recent trade mis­sion to Chi­na and saw for myself the oppor­tu­ni­ties for UK tech com­pa­nies of all sizes.

How­ev­er, there are chal­lenges to the suc­cess­ful export­ing of UK tech. Sir Hos­sein Yas­saie, chief exec­u­tive of Imag­i­na­tion, com­ment­ing on the recent launch of the Elec­tron­ic Sys­tems Chal­lenges and Oppor­tu­ni­ties (ESCO) report, says: “We need scale to over­come the ris­ing costs of design and man­u­fac­ture if we are to be prof­itable. That means cre­at­ing major glob­al elec­tron­ic sys­tems brands here in the UK.” This is true across the whole of the tech sec­tor.

Tech in the UK has been one of the fastest-grow­ing sec­tors over the last decade

So what is being done to address this chal­lenge? One exam­ple of action tak­en to sup­port the inter­na­tion­al growth of start-ups is The Future Fifty pro­gramme, launched by Chan­cel­lor George Osborne. This pro­gramme aims to make it as easy as pos­si­ble for com­pa­nies to list on the UK stock mar­ket, and will pro­vide tai­lored sup­port on issues, such as immi­gra­tion, exports and inter­na­tion­al trade, from a mix­ture of gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor experts.

Invest­ment in research and devel­op­ment is anoth­er key fac­tor in the glob­al scaleabil­i­ty of UK tech com­pa­nies. James Dyson high­light­ed in the Finan­cial Times the suc­cess of the UK’s most research-inten­sive com­pa­nies that have con­tin­ued to thrive through­out the reces­sion. In par­tic­u­lar, he recog­nised the suc­cess of ARM, world lead­ers in their field, based in Cam­bridge.

In addi­tion, it is impor­tant that inter­na­tion­al mar­kets are con­fi­dent in the sta­bil­i­ty of the UK tech sec­tor. This con­tin­ues to grow. Recent data from the UK Busi­ness Con­fi­dence Mon­i­tor, com­piled by the Insti­tute of Char­tered Accoun­tants in Eng­land and Wales with Grant Thorn­ton, showed that con­fi­dence in the UK IT and com­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­tor has steadi­ly increased in the past year, and is now sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er than con­fi­dence in the UK econ­o­my as a whole.

Aligned with this, the data reveals that exports of IT and com­mu­ni­ca­tions ser­vices have also expe­ri­enced steady growth over the past 12 months, sur­pass­ing the econ­o­my-wide aver­age. And this momen­tum is set to car­ry on through­out the next year.

The UK is in a great posi­tion to take its place as a glob­al leader in tech­nol­o­gy. The sec­tor con­tin­ues to inno­vate and devel­op and design world-class prod­ucts and ser­vices. We should cel­e­brate this achieve­ment and con­tin­ue to build our inter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion and grow our glob­al pres­ence.

Julian David has spent more than 30 years in the tech­nol­o­gy indus­try, main­ly with IBM, lat­ter­ly as vice pres­i­dent of small and medi­um busi­ness in the UK, Ire­land, Nether­lands and Africa, and then vice pres­i­dent of pub­lic sec­tor in the UK, Ire­land and South Africa.