UK tech companies raised £24 billion in 2022, according to Dealroom, more than France (£11.8 billion) and Germany (£9.1 billion).
The UK has created 144 unicorns and 237 futurecorns and over 85,000 startups and scale-ups.
The UK tech sector now employs 3 million people and is worth $1 trillion – third to the US and China – and more than double Germany’s ($467.2 billion) and three times more than France’s ($307.5 billion).
as well as retaining the lead when it comes to overall funding, unicorns and startups numbers.
The UK has produced almost 400 high-growth startups since 2000 (worth more than $250 million in value).
Upskilling and reskilling have seen nearly 3,000 edtech startups having raised a collective £1.7 billion in funding.
Companies such as Academy, Code First Girls, Immersive Labs and Multiverse are focused on enabling people to gain the skills they need to succeed in tech roles, from tech apprenticeships to coding, development and cyber security.
According to smarter job search engine Adzuna, UK companies are increasingly hiring for entry-level tech roles, up from 6,596 in November last year to over 15,000 this year, as they seek to bring in a new generation of tech talent and develop them into future leaders.
Whilst the UK remains the dominant country outside the US for fintech investment (nearly £10 billion raised this year), it is also becoming a leading hub for impact tech – companies creating technological solutions to reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
There are nearly 1,200 impact tech companies in the UK which have raised $3.8 billion in funding this year, ahead of last year’s record £3 billion.
Green energy receives the bulk of investment, such as Newcleo, a startup that is developing technology to enable safe uranium recycling (£258 million).
Scaleups tackling healthcare inequality, such as Cera which bring technological innovation into social care raised £263 million.
GrowUp Farms, a vertical farming company which uses technology to grow food more sustainably raised £100 million.
The steady influx of investment into impact tech means the sector now employs more than 53,500 people, up from 37,500 last year.
Cambridge was recently named the number one university in the world for producing successful tech founders with over 500 alumni founders raising more than $10 million in funding. Oxford came third with 410. Bristol (173), Nottingham (100) and London (98).
