Eight of the top ten areas for tech are in London, report finds

The Cities of London and Westminster constituency, represented by Conservative MP Nickie Aiken, takes the top spot, with around 2,000 startups and over 70,000 jobs based in the constituency, according to a report by the Startup Coalition.

That was followed by Keir Starmer’s Holborn and St Pancras, home to Google’s Deepmind, and Labour MP Meg Hillier’s Hackney South and Shoreditch, the birthplace of many of the UK’s most well known tech unicorns, including finch giant Wise.

In total, 18 of the top 50 constituencies for tech were in London.

Dom Hallas, Executive Director of the Startup Coalition, said: “Within the global tech ecosystem, London is widely viewed as second only to Silicon Valley as the best place to launch a startup. So it’s no wonder that several of the UK’s top constituencies for startups are located in the capital.”

The report was launched yesterday by Deputy Prime Minsiter Oliver Dowden, who said the technology industry was the one which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak paid closest attention to.

“Some people have referred to Rishi as a ‘tech bro’ as though that is a slur, but I actually take that as a compliment,” he said.

Last year, the UK became just the third country in the world to have a tech sector valued at $1 trillion. It is the biggest in Europe by some distance and behind only the US and China globally.

The UK’s tech industry is worth more than double Germany’s ($467.2 billion) and three times more than France’s ($307.5 billion), with more ‘unicorn’ billion dollar tech startups than Germany, France and Sweden combined

To mark London Tech Week, the UK government yesterday chartered a number of London Eye ‘pods’ and invited scores of startup founders and investors aboard for a 30 minute “elevator pitch” session amid the sweltering summer heat.

Lord Johnson, Minister for Investment, said the event was part of a drive to attract top tech talent to found businesses in the UK.

“For me, advancements in all science and tech areas come from good collaboration and bringing people together.

“The tech companies here aren’t just British businesses, they come from all over the world so we’re building a really powerful ecosystem here.”

He told investors: “When you look down from the top of the London Eye you’ll see a flurry of unicorns.

“But when you look across the Channel you’ll only see sad, lonely unicorns, because we create many more of them here.”