1. Vicki Brown Digital Economy Unit UK Government Information Economy Strategy

2. Over past 10 years the ICT sector has grown over 3 times as fast as the whole economy. Contributed £106 billion (more than €130 billion) to the UK economy in 2012 – around 8% of the UK’s Gross Value Added (GVA) Expected that 10% of the UK GDP will come from the digital economy in 2015 UK tech economy will hit £207 billion by 2016 - already Europe’s largest market Importance of digital to UK economy

3. Importance of digital to employment ICT sector employs more than 1.2 million people in the UK. Europe’s 3 rd largest tech workforce Employment in the digital sector projected to grow significantly faster than other sectors (3.2% per year compared with 0.8% across all sectors) between 2013-2023 Employment of IT specialists across the economy expected to grow by 2% per year. Skills challenge …

4. Retail (e-commerce) Entertainment (streaming/smart TV) Transport (timetable apps) Automotive (Connected/driverless cars) Utilities (Smart metering) Financial services (FINTECH) Healthcare (MEDTECH) Construction (BIM) Importance of digital to other sectors

5. UK strengths London: 88,200 tech/digital firms. Most international HQs in Europe FDI - Largest stock of foreign direct investment in the Information and Communications sector in the EU with £67bn – over 30% of EU total (2012) FinTech - Greater rates of investment in the UK than similar investments in Silicon Valley E-commerce: Highest proportion of individuals who have bought or ordered goods or services online Open data - Made more public datasets (over 15,000) available than any other country

6. Information Economy Strategy June 2013 – “Create the conditions for a thriving UK information economy”. Very broad scope: –Infrastructure –Digital skills –Entrepreneurship –Data –Government services –Smart Cities –Cyber security –Digital inclusion –etc, etc …

7. Infrastructure Aiming to have 95% of UK homes and businesses with access to superfast broadband by 2017. Investing over £1 billion in broadband with superfast broadband available to more than one million additional premises. Super Connected Cities Programme Hard-to-reach areas Long term strategy to deliver a future digital communications infrastructure

8. Skills Demand for digital skills is outstripping supply. Digital Sector has the highest proportion of vacancies, with string reliance on migrant labour. UK Government taking steps to strengthen pipeline of talent – schools, vocational, higher education – e.g. –New computing curriculum in schools –Enabling industry to address their digital skills needs –Changes to Apprenticeships –Review of accreditation of computer science degrees

9. Digital entrepreneurship London emerging as a premier location for digital entrepreneurship - 200 > 1300 startups in East London alone over last 4/5 years UKTI – promoting UK as a destination for tech companies Tech City UK – accelerating growth of digital businesses Tech Nation report – mapping tech clusters in the UK “Do More Online” - Getting more businesses transacting online

10. Move to the “Digital Economy” Spring 2014 Ministerial Taskforce Minister for the Digital Economy Digital Economy Unit (joint BIS-DCMS) Digital Cabinet (January 2015) Post-General Election ….