By Sandra O’Connell

London is one of the world’s greatest cities when it comes to art, theatre, fine dining or business. But beyond the city’s cultural offerings, it’s also one of the top places to live for tech workers in Europe.

As the beating heart of the UK’s business operations, London is home to most of the high-profile jobs in the country. According to business lobbying group BusinessLDN, employers in the UK’s capital are increasingly confident about their recruitment outlook.

The non-profit points to data from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, the UK’s recruitment industry body, that suggests one in four London employers expect to see an increase in their permanent staff headcount in the coming months.

With the UK already one of the world’s top tech hubs, very many of these will be technology jobs.

According to the latest figures from Dealroom for the Digital Economy Council, the UK tech sector ranks number one in Europe, and number three in the world, at a combined market value of $1 trillion (€905 billion). It’s only the third country to hit this valuation, after the US and China.

Put another way, the UK’s tech industry is worth more than double that of Germany ($467.2 billion, or €423.2 billion) and three times that of France ($307.5 billion, or €278.5 billion).

A wealth of high-growth companies

The UK is home to 13 decacorns – valued at more than $10 billion (€9 billion) – including digital bank Revolut, payments platform Rapyd and fintech FNZ, all of which are based in London.

In fact, the UK tops the poll for more high-growth companies than its European counterparts, having also created 144 unicorns – with valuations of $1 billion (€909 million) or more – and 237 futurecorns, or unicorns of the future.

According to figures from Dealroom for the Digital Economy Council, fast-growing UK tech companies raised near-record levels of funding last year (£24 billion, or €27 billion).

That’s more than France and Germany combined, and takes the total raised over the past five years to nearly £100 billion (€113 billion).

A thriving start-up scene

One of the main reasons London has held onto its status as a tech hotspot is the UK’s drive to blend innovation with standards and values.

For example, earlier this year, the UK unveiled a new approach to regulating AI based on core principles such as safety, transparency and fairness.

The Chancellor - the UK’s finance minister - also announced the government will bring forward new legal powers for the Digital Markets Unit to drive up competition and level the playing field for challenger tech firms.

Part of what makes the UK so competitive in tech is the combination of a thriving start-up scene, vibrant investment community, cloud-first government policy and a spirit of innovation. And London is leading the way.

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence, mixed and virtual realities, blockchain technology and, soon, quantum computing are all rocket fuel for the fourth industrial revolution.

And let’s not forget that England was, of course, home to the first one. Moreover, Charles Babbage built the first mechanical computing device, and Ada Lovelace the first computer algorithm. Both were Londoners.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport was recently replaced by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, a clear signal of intent. Its first piece of work was to launch the government’s plan to cement the UK’s place as a science and technology superpower by 2030.

The new Science and Technology Framework plans to grow the UK economy, create the high-paid jobs of the future, protect security and radically improve people’s lives through science, innovation and technology.

It is backed by over £370 million (€418 million) in new government funding to boost infrastructure, bring the world’s best talent to the UK and seize the potential of deep-tech innovations.

Plenty of jobs on offer

Tech openings are legion, at all levels. They are only going to grow, given that tech advancements are accelerating faster than our ability to adapt, reckons Microsoft. According to its survey, 69 per cent of leaders feel their organisation suffers from a digital skills gap.

By 2025, Microsoft predicts there will be an additional three million new tech jobs in the UK. To put that in perspective, the UK’s tech sector employed just under two million workers in 2021, according to CompTIA’s State of the Tech Workforce UK report.

For many moving to the UK to take up these jobs, London will be the city of choice and not just for the scale of the opportunity.

The UK’s storied capital scores highly in terms of quality of life too. Boston Consulting Group’s City of Choice report 2023 found London tops the charts as “the most desirable megacentre” – a city with a population of more than 10 million people – to live in, ahead of New York, Shanghai, Beijing and Los Angeles.

Source: euronews.com/next/2023/04/27/even-post-brexit-london-remains-a-hotspot-for-tech-workers-in-europe