01 Regional tech analysis
UK Tech Regions: Where Capital, Companies and Talent Really Sit
A visual report on the UK's regional tech ecosystem, showing how London, the South East, Scotland and other regions compare on talent, company depth, deal activity and 2025 equity capital.
regional tech workforce
active tech companies
equity deals in 2025
raised in 2025
The headline is national. The useful pattern is regional.
The UK has a broad tech base, but the four measures do not move evenly. Talent, company formation, deal activity and capital each tell a different version of the map.
1,939 deals / 1.70m employees
422 deals / 570k employees
293 deals / 287k employees
248 deals / 214k employees
213 deals / 113k employees
218 deals / 237k employees
London is not just first. It changes the scale of the whole chart.
London accounts for about 64% of all 2025 equity raised in this dataset, while holding about 46% of the measured tech workforce. That gap is the capital gravity problem.
Capital is more concentrated than employment.
The workforce is large outside London. The equity market is much more concentrated.
- London£12.8bn
- South East£2.21bn
- East of England£1.73bn
- Scotland£1.03bn
- South West£756m
- North West£483m
The next strongest signal is activity, not only money.
Deal counts show where investment conversations are happening, even when the value of those deals is smaller.
Each dot is roughly 50 deals. London alone fills about half the field.
Some regions are active but under-capitalised.
The North West reports more deals than the South West, but less 2025 equity raised. That points to a different mix of stage, sector, cheque size and investor appetite.
Company depth and capital depth split the map in two.
A region can have thousands of active tech companies without attracting the same share of large equity rounds.
high company base High capital
smaller company base Lower capital
smaller company base Company depth
capital gap London South East East North West Scotland South West
The benchmark is not one ranking. It is a profile.
The most useful regional view is not "who wins?" It is "what kind of ecosystem is this?"
The UK does not have one tech-policy problem.
London's issue is scale and global capital. The wider UK problem is conversion: turning company depth and employment into larger rounds, stronger specialist clusters and more repeat investors outside the capital.
Capital gravity
London remains the national equity engine.
Regional depth
The South East, East of England, Scotland and North West show different kinds of strength.
Conversion gap
Some regions have company bases that are not yet matched by cheque size.
Benchmark use
The matrix gives founders, investors and policymakers a reference point for regional strategy.