We conducted polling for techUK exploring the views of the tech sector on the strength of the UK economy, and the UK’s relative position in the world.

Read the full report here.

In our survey, we found:

A growth mindset: our survey shows that British tech companies have a growth mindset. Their top priorities for the next five years are to grow their businesses (45%), onboard new technologies (40%), and expand their current capabilities, services, or products (39%). While there was a general optimism about the future of the UK tech sector and the economy, tech SMBs had a less positive outlook. Ambitions to hire new staff had decreased when compared with last year, however tech companies had little desire to reduce headcounts. 

UK tech wants to go global: like last year’s poll UK tech companies showed a strong desire to expand internationally. 80% reported that they had plans to or were likely to expand internationally in the next five years. The USA was the most popular destination for expansion, and was more popular than last year. 47% of businesses selected it as their top destination for expansion in 2025, a 20% increase on 2024. 

Demand for new tech is high, but challenges to adoption remain: we asked our tech companies whether interest in new technology (general) and AI tools had risen among their customers, and the answer was a resounding yes. 77% of our sample said interest in new tech had risen over the last year among their customers. The motivations for adopting new technology and AI were similar with increased productivity, increasing innovation and improving efficiency the main drivers for both forms of adoption. However our sample reported different barriers to take-up. For AI technology addressing security and privacy concerns as well as improving the level of training and support was seen as key, while for technologies (general) addressing high implementation costs, complexity and energy costs were top. 

Tech businesses want help with the costs of doing business: while overall business sentiment remained positive compared with last year’s poll, the impact of energy costs and the tax burden on businesses has increased. Energy costs were seen as the biggest drawback of operating in the UK and concern has risen by 11% (from 41% to 52%), concerns over tax had also risen by 12% (from 30% to 42%). The level of interest rates (31%), the amount of regulation tech businesses are subjected to (27%) and the legacy effects of Brexit (25%) followed to make up the top five weaknesses of operating in the UK.  

Manchester retains its crown as the most popular tech destination outside of the capital: Manchester (62%) remained the top city outside of London that tech sector businesses identified as the most supportive of the sector’s growth. Our top five locations remained the same as last year (Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Cambridge and Oxford). However Edinburgh significantly improved its position, now ranking 6th. When it came to the main motivating factors for tech businesses to invest further in the UK or expand their business to another location, infrastructure (50%), the availability of local talent (30%) and the number of local customers (26%) were the top drivers. 

Overall tech businesses think the new Government is performing well, but tech SMBs are not convinced: more tech sector businesses say the new Labour government has performed well (52%) than poorly (23%). However, among SMBs satisfaction is lower. Where 38% think the government is performing well, with 33% saying they are performing poorly. Reducing costs such as business taxes (47%), followed by reducing energy prices (44%)  were the most commonly cited demands of tech businesses of the new Government. Larger businesses however (48%) were much more likely than SMBs (33%) to identify simplifying regulations around new technologies as an action the Government should take to support them.

Polling Tables

We polled 250 senior decision makers in UK Tech Sector business leaders between 27th January – 5th February 2025. Public First is a member of the British Polling Council (BPC) and the Market Research Society, and abides by their rules. For more information, contact the Public First polling team: polling@publicfirst.co.uk.

Download Polling Tables