Digital and Technologies Sector Plan Year One Update
DSIT's first annual scorecard of the UK digital and technology sector, published June 2026.
Last refreshed: 15 June 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Does DSIT's own data confirm mid-tier UK venture rounds are hollowing out?
Timeline for Digital and Technologies Sector Plan Year One Update
DSIT scorecard maps the funding barbell
UK Startups and Innovation- What does the DSIT Digital and Technologies Sector Plan Year One Update say about UK VC funding?
- The June 2026 update logs £8.3bn of equity across 1,284 deals in 2025. Set against the acceleration in 2026, it highlights a funding barbell: more capital arriving in larger but fewer rounds, with mid-tier deal flow shrinking.Source: DSIT Year One Update
- How many active tech companies are there in the UK according to DSIT?
- DSIT's June 2026 scorecard counted 107,082 active UK tech companies, 95% of which have fewer than 50 employees.Source: DSIT Year One Update
- What is the UK tech sector's contribution to the economy?
- The UK tech sector generated £158bn in GVA in 2024 (about 6% of the UK total), employed 1.33 million people at average wages of £56,000, and produced £408bn in turnover, according to DSIT's 2026 scorecard.Source: DSIT Year One Update
- What new startup funding rounds did the DSIT scorecard spotlight?
- The June 2026 update highlighted NuQuantum's $60m Series A (the largest quantum-networking round globally), Optalysys at £23m, and Cambridge GaN Devices closing a $32m Series C.Source: DSIT Year One Update
Background
The Digital and Technologies Sector Plan Year One Update was published on 10 June 2026 by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) as the first annual report against the UK's Industrial Strategy sector plan for digital and technologies. It is the government's most comprehensive single-document snapshot of the UK tech sector, consolidating data from the ONS, the Intellectual Property Office, UKRI, and GlobalData .
The scorecard's headline numbers: 107,082 active tech companies (95% with fewer than 50 employees), £158bn GVA (6% of UK total), 1.33 million sector employees at average wages of £56,000, £408bn in sector turnover, 655 active university spinouts (30% of the UK total), and 1,521 patents granted to tech companies in 2024 (41% of the national total via the IPO). For investment, it logged £8.3bn of equity across 1,284 deals in 2025 (GlobalData), against which Lowdown had already reported $10.5bn landing in the first four months of 2026 alone, making visible the barbell: more capital compressing into fewer, larger rounds while the mid-tier thins. Fresh raises spotlighted in the document included NuQuantum's $60m Series A (the largest quantum-networking round globally at time of publication), Optalysys at £23m, and Cambridge GaN Devices closing a $32m Series C.
The update is a policy document as much as a statistical one: it underpins the case for continued AI hardware investment, expanded spinout support, and the regional capital dispersal programmes Vallance announced at the same summit.