The UK tech sector has for years been, and remains today, a national asset to treasure, nurture and celebrate on the one hand. Yet on the other, while Government recognises its importance and global status, its policies so often send an opposite message.
CANCER CHEER
In life sciences the UK is a leader. Cheer and cancer are two words which rarely appear in the same sentence. But new treatments, drugs and procedures are being found all the time and, like 2025 before it, 2026 has been a year for celebration in this respect, as the June annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology demonstrated.
An unprecedented drug Daraxonrasib is being hailed as a potential breakthrough drug to treat pancreatic cancer, the world’s deadliest. An early access scheme in the USA is making this drug, developed by Revolution Medicines, available to sufferers in the USA. Medics are calling for similar trials in the UK.
And new targeted treatments for a hormonal type of breast cancer avoid chemotherapy and so its side effects. A new treatment also benefits bladder cancer sufferers by avoiding bladder removal surgery.
As reported in the Times of 2 and 6 June, significantly the UK, through Oxford scientists, is the home of discovery of a pill, in a category of immunotherapy, which has the potential to shrink certain tumours: this is now in clinical trials, an example of the achievement of the UK as one of the world’s leading drug discovery nations.
TECH CHEER AND CHAINS
In an article in the Times, Kate Bingham, a venture capitalist who masterminded the successful Covid vaccine programme in the UK, points to either the slow take up or the rejection of a high proportion of new medical treatments in the UK by NICE due to pricing constraints. While she welcomes that Government has committed to an increase in spend on innovative medicine and also the launch of the Health Data Research Service, she cites how policy lags behind the science. She decries the denial of access by UK patients to clinical trials, and also that Britain is too slow and inconsistent in adopting new medicines once approved. So much more could be done in life sciences.
In tech more generally the UK has long been and remains the leading European hub for venture capital. In the first quarter of 2026, UK start-ups raised some £6 billion, apparently exceeding the amount raised by the next three top raising European countries put together. But most of the money is non-UK sourced. The UK has faster track regulation for AI discovered drugs and AI cancer screening. In AI, it ranks third globally behind the USA and China. While AI needs regulation, the UK Government is, it says, endeavouring not to slow down development by heavy handed regulation, giving it advantages over Europe as a whole.
Kings Cross is a new tech hub in the UK housing Google’s European headquarters and also Anthropic (Claude), Open AI, DeepMind and Meta, as well as a host of venture capital start-ups. Add the East London centre of tech, and the Oxford/Cambridge research and innovation centres and the opportunity is not just nascent but unfolding daily. Foreign investment can make these opportunities global successes. Shoreditch based PhysicsX is a prime example, exploiting AI, valued at over $1 billion in its latest funding round – and the owners are nearly entirely foreign corporations or investors, such as Temasek of Singapore and Nvidia of the USA. Predominately UK ownership would be much better. Plentiful risk capital is the food for innovation, but there is too little which is UK based and incentives are needed for investment funds to take more risk.
UK has tech talent in abundance, as U.S. tech bosses keep saying, with UK innovators, scientists and managers building great tech businesses, but it should also attract the best brains from abroad. However, it is reported that on the contrary the UK is experiencing a brain drain as the UK stifles entrepreneurs. The shackles which limit high growth companies must come off.
UK’S MR HYDE PROBLEM
Individuals who build these businesses should receive high reward and be able to keep the benefits subject to reasonable taxes. But so many, once they can realise their equity interests, are put off by high taxation in the UK. The buyers of these companies tend to be foreign, especially USA, private equity investors or tech companies: so, the ultimate benefits leak away from this country. Take ARM, a British based chip company sold on the London Stock Exchange by shareholders for £32 billion some years ago, it is now worth 10 times that but is listed on Nasdaq, not London. Often too, these companies, once they reach a certain medium size, need to expand by listing on an exchange, and so many do not choose London. Government is failing to incentivise companies to stay British.
Government’s net zero energy policies make the UK’s energy the most expensive in the world for businesses. AI needs data centres: several are due to be built in the UK, but they consistently consume large amounts of energy: it is doubtful that the UK with current energy policies can produce enough, fast enough, especially when added to growing needs from decarbonisation, and it’s too expensive. UK businesses are at a severe disadvantage compared to companies in competing countries. It is reported that even Unions supporting Labour such as GMB thinks energy policies are “closing factories, hitting investment and hitting jobs”.
In life sciences the UK is failing to capitalise on its leading position as observed above.
And for young companies, new employment legislation, as well as limiting jobs for the young, is a disincentive to hire people, who are essential to progress. Added to that is the newly lowered threshold for National Insurance payments and so deterring new hiring. Bringing in the best talent from abroad is not easy and UK taxes are a discouragement. But a lack of decisive and realistic immigration policies, driven more by vote catching than hard-nosed realism that substantial but targeted immigration is essential, prejudice UK high tech from advancing.
Business people and economists and experts see the opportunity in tech for the UK, as does Government in theory. But there is a Parliamentary Labour party which sees successful people as cash cows, not the life blood for UK growth in the nation’s veins. So, will UK tech be so hamstrung that it will never reach its true potential for the UK’s benefit?
THE BIG SUCCESS STORY
UK tech is a big success story and can multiply in greatness: and it is by determined and clear Government commitment consistent with that aim which can accelerate it. But that requires a change of culture and courage at the top of UK leadership. Positive sounds are being made at London Tech Week in June: for example, the Government’s proposed new £1.1 billion AI Hardware Plan to back British development of chips and computer power behind AI. But it is questionable, in the light of the sheer size of global competition, whether the scale of support is enough to produce the boost required.
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