London’s tech scene is world-leading, but complacency risks being our Achilles heel, writes Lord Mayor of London Alastair King
Walk around the Square Mile and you will not only experience a city steeped in history and rich in culture, but one that has for centuries stood apart as an international financial centre thanks to a relentless, insatiable desire to innovate, push boundaries and harness the immense potential of emerging technologies. From pioneering frameworks for digital assets to creating financial mechanisms to help tackle climate change and boost financial inclusion, the City of London remains at the vanguard of a technological revolution.
Next week, we will celebrate the remarkable achievements of the sector, and its equally remarkable workforce, alongside the science, innovation and technology secretary, Peter Kyle, at the annual Innovation and Technology Dinner held at Mansion House. There is, after all, a great deal to celebrate.
No room for complacency in London
London is a leading global tech hub (not to mention Europe’s largest tech centre), renowned for its start-up community and the presence of global tech firms. Indeed, our thriving tech ecosystem brings together world-class talent, robust investment and an enabling environment that allows technology to flourish both responsibly and at scale. We are home to global leaders, including domestic success stories such as Revolut and Monzo, as well as foreign-born behemoths like Anthropic and OpenAI – with twice the number of AI-based companies found here, on these isles, than in any other European nation. In fact, London ranks behind only the San Francisco Bay area as a top talent location for technology firms. Let us be clear, though: there is no room for complacency.
New technologies are rewriting how we do business, interact with one another, learn, fight crime and identify illnesses. The government has recently launched programmes indicating how technology can drive productivity and growth to improve public services. What does that look like day-to-day? In the NHS this means reducing time spent by highly qualified medical professionals on administration, freeing up resources for patients. Efforts to combat crime will benefit from AI-enabled assimilation of real time data shared between police, councils and social services. Here in the Square Mile, our very own City of London Police – the national lead force for fraud – is forging the way forward in using technology to combat online crime. It is one of many innovations that make the force uniquely placed to tackle a scourge that accounts for 43 per cent of all crime.
The tech sector must go further
A key tenet of my mayoral theme, Growth Unleashed, has been to encourage businesses to embrace the white heat of new technologies to give British firms the competitive edge – an area in which we have sought to lead from the front. The mayoral Scale-up Showcase series has been linking up some of the most promising British tech companies seeking to raise between £5m and £30m with hundreds of (primarily British) potential investors. Further, our Quantum Hackathon, taking place in October in partnership with IBM, will convene cross-disciplinary teams to tackle high-value challenges in areas such as market simulation, portfolio optimisation and risk.
For all the success of the United Kingdom’s tech sector, we must, though, do more. As I have observed in these pages before, too often innovation born in this country is being forced overseas due to a lack of domestic capital investment. Be in no doubt, others seek to eat our lunch.
Much has been said about the state of our public markets, but the picture is not all doom and gloom. Overseas, investors and private equity firms continue to see the United Kingdom as an extremely attractive destination. Our mergers and acquisitions market and share buyback numbers point to a renewed confidence in UK PLC.
A missing part of the jigsaw, though, is our pension funds. The Mansion House Accord seeks to right this problem – a commitment from 17 of our largest workplace pension providers to allocate 10 per cent of default defined contribution funds to alternative investments by 2030; unlocking up to £100bn of investment, including for tech businesses, helping them to start, scale and succeed here. Half of the funds covered by the Mansion House Accord are earmarked for deployment here in the United Kingdom.
Succeed we must. For reasons of both prosperity and security, we cannot allow ourselves to become consumers of other people’s innovation.
Alastair King is the Lord Mayor of the City of London