UK tech sector grows 6x faster than the wider economy

New figures from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) show the UK’s digital and tech sector continues to be an economic bright spot, outperforming the economy at large and continuing to expand amidst the backdrop of slowed economic growth in the UK and across Europe.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) released new gross value added (GVA) figures detailing the growth of the digital sector, as well the contributions of other DCMS sectors to the overall UK economy.

The digital sector added £149 billion to the overall UK economy in 2018, more than £400 million per day and accounting for 7.7% of the UK economy. The sector grew 7.9% from 2017 to 2018, nearly six times faster than the economy as a whole, which grew at a rate of 1.4%.

Computer programming, consultancy and related activities had the strongest performance, growing 10.6% from 2017 to 2018, and accounting for 2.9% of the UK’s GVA in 2018, a total value of £53 billion, and making up 36.7% of the digital sector.

The telecoms sector also saw a strong performance, adding £36 billion, or 2% of GVA to the UK’s economy while also growing at a rate of 5.8%.

A number of other sectors saw extremely strong growth numbers, including: ‘manufacturing of electronics and computers’ at 15% growth from 2017 to 2018; ‘wholesale of computers and electronics’ at 10.9%; and ‘information service activities’ at 15.1%.

Nearly all remaining digital sub-sectors saw strong growth, ranging from the ‘film, tv, video, radio and music’ sector at 3.1% growth, to publishing and software publishing, both growing at a 3.5% rate. While these numbers are at the lower end, they are still more than double the UK overall growth rate.

The DCMS GVA numbers paint a picture of a robust and strong digital and tech sector that has consistently outpaced the rest of the UK’s economy, driving overall growth and demonstrating a clear potential for continued expansion and future productivity gains.

Digital Minister Matt Warman said:

“Technology is a sweet spot of our economy, bringing jobs and wealth across the country.

The success is thanks to our business friendly environment and fantastic workforce.

We are working hard to continue this momentum by strengthening regional tech clusters supporting digital businesses and investing in people’s digital skills.”

In total, the Department for Digital Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) sectors (excluding tourism) contributed £224.1 billion to the UK in 2018, accounting for 11.7 per cent of the economy as a whole.

Headline figures for additional DCMS sectors include:

The Creative Industries contributed £111.7bn to the UK economy in 2018 – up 7.4 per cent from the previous year, meaning growth in the sector is more than five times larger than growth across the economy as a whole.

The Cultural Sector contributed £32.3bn to the UK economy in 2018 – up 2.7 per cent from the previous year.

Read the full DCMS Sectors Economic Estimates 2018 report